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Sunday, August 11, 2013

Couch to 10k: Week 5 Session 3

Session 3 - 42 min. Run 3 minutes. Walk 1 minute. Do this 8 times.

Fundraising for @abortionsupport, one running session at a time!

This was a mixed session.  I got up this morning at 9.30am feeling pretty dog tired.  My legs felt tired and a wee bit achey when I woke up and it took me a little while to come round.  So I wasn't feeling too optimistic about the running session.  I eventually managed to go out at 11ish.

As usual, the 5 mins walk to warm up was fine.  When I started the first round of running I could feel a sort of, pinching I guess, in my knees.  But after a minute that feeling had gone away, so I'm not worrying about it.  My knees usually feel a bit odd at the start of each run but I think it's just that they aren't fully warmed up yet.

By the 3rd or 4th round, and on the last round, I felt that there were some moments where I had finally settled into my stride.  As if I'd found my long distance stride that would keep me going over the whole 10k race I've set myself to do.  Of course near as soon as I thought about it my stride changed, but what they hey.  Today was the first time I'd experienced that feeling.

By the time I'd got home and had 5 minutes sitting down my legs no loner ached like they did when I woke up.  That was surprising.

That was the good.

As for the bad.. At the end of one round, doing the walk, I wasn't paying attention to my stopwatch and ended up walking for 2 mins instead of 1.  Oops.  Then later I realised I really needed the toilet.  I am not someone who can squat behind a tree to wee, I think it's gross and unhygienic.  Thankfully (I suppose) I'd misjudged my route and was nearly home but had another 15/20 minutes or so to go.  So I nipped in the house to use my facilities then went straight out again.  This meant I wasn't running for a full 3 minutes on the penultimate round, instead I ran for 1 minute, nipped in the house, then ran for another 2 minutes.

I will leave it to you, my readers, to decide if this session counts as a full training session or not.

Speaking of routes, today's was 3.8 miles.  That's 6.11km which is sounds pretty good yeah?  OK so I clearly wasn't running the whole route, my timing was 24 minutes running and 24 minutes walking, but that's still pretty good yeah?  Given how I was practically at home at about the 30 minute mark I have since mapped out other routes for me that will fit the next few training sessions.

I guess I'm getting a bit faster at the running, and I'm getting to know my route a bit better because I'm getting better at judging times and distances.  I can more or less accurately guess when I've been running for a minute and a half, or for two minutes, and I know what 10 seconds worth or running paces feels like.  I think in the past I've been checking my stopwatch as a way of gauging where I am and how far I've gone, which makes no sense.  Time isn't the same as distance but when I feel a bit lost and unsure of the geography around me the only way to feel like I have a handle on things is to check my time. It's daft I know.

Anyway, I've mapped out my next route and it will be 4.5 miles.  In total I will be running for 35 minutes and walking for 17.  Or longer, if I've misunderstood my pace.

I didn't eat any insects today.  Hooray.

About the fundraising aspect...
Abortion Support Network (ASN) provide money to Irish women who need to travel to England for an abortion.  Abortion is very restricted in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, so if women require an abortion they need to travel and pay for the procedure.  This is expensive - between £400 to £2,000.  ASN are the only organisation (so far as they know) that provide grants to women to travel.
Although it is illegal to get an abortion in both parts of Ireland, it is entirely legal for women to travel elsewhere to get one, so don't worry, no one is breaking the law here.

Women need abortions for hundreds of different reasons.  Stories from the women ASN have helped are included in their monthly newsletters.  It's an eye-opening read.  Please, regardless of your views on abortion, go read those newsletters.

So I support them.  For every training session I complete I will donate £1 to ASN and I am asking my readers to sponsor me either by doing a one off donation or donating some money for each session that I complete.  You can find out how to donate to ASN here.

Total raised: £18

Thank you for reading.

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