Couch to 10k, Week 7, Session 1

54 min. Run 10 minutes. Walk 1 minute. Do this 4 times. 

I was dreading this.  I put off the session until Wednesday, because on Tuesday morning my legs still felt tired from Saturday’s and Sunday’s exertions.  I then decided that I had better go out in the morning before work, rather than afterwards, as I would likely chicken out if I had the whole day to stew on it.

So I got up at 6am, had a slice of toast and a yogurt and was out of the house at 6.25am.

It wasn’t really worth worrying about.  The third round was quite hard, but there were a good few minutes of going up an incline in that one so I walked a few seconds of it.  I managed to not check my watch until about 5 to 7 minutes in for each round, which made it feel easier.  I worked out that it takes me 10 minutes to do one mile, which equates to a pace of 6 mile per hour.  It’s very slow, but I’m not bothered about being fast.  The first, second and fourth rounds felt OK.  I wasn’t huffing and puffing as much as I have been on previous training sessions, which must prove that I’m getting fitter.

I considered trying to push myself to go faster and/or take longer strides but decided against that.  This week’s training sessions are planned to be quite close together (Wednesday, Friday and Sunday) so I don’t want to push myself too hard.  From next week (easy recovery week yeah!) I plan to get back into the Tuesday/Friday/Sunday sessions.  Week 6 left me all out of whack.  Hopefully by week 9 I’ll be able to push myself a bit more.

If you like reading about my progress please consider supporting me to complete the training by donating to the Abortion Support Network (ASN).  You do this in two ways:

via MyDonate 

Directly to ASN: https://www.abortionsupport.org.uk/support-us/donate/

Total raised so far: £26.75.

Why am I doing this?  ASN provide money to women needing to travel from Ireland (both the Republic and the North) to England to access an abortion.  Currently it is very, very difficult for women to access an abortion in Ireland which means travelling for the procedure is then only open to women with money.  That's not fair.

It strikes me that if you’re going to make abortions very difficult to get you should provide high quality sex education, free contraception for anyone is sexually active (no matter the age), fully paid, statutory maternity and paternity leave for at least the first year of the child’s life, state subsidised cheap childcare, a set of comprehensive benefits that don’t mean people have to live in poverty, and an effective adoption and foster care system.

Do any countries provide this?