10th Mar – Days to go on 100 days dry: 33. Days until the Dartmoor Way: 66

“You must be very polite with yourself when you are learning something new.” Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love.

I reread a post where I hadn’t been able to finish the third interval of 5 minutes, (Wall.Street.Crash.) Originally posted on Mar 16. It read,

Talking to a good friend this morning however has brought me out of this self-flagellating funk and brought me to my senses in short order. She asked how far I had actually gone, (3.75km). Is that longer than you have before? (Yes). What was your total running interval time? (14 minutes.) Is that the longest you’ve run in this program so far? (Yes).  Can you get over yourself and celebrate that? (I really should shouldn’t I?)

And she’s right, there is so much to take away from this. Whilst the prospect of running for 3 minutes filled me with dread at the beginning of this process, now it was the warm up for a 5 minute run. Which will in turn become a warm up for something longer.

I put this out there because I have just come in from a 40 minute run. Not 4 weeks from writing that paragraph above I am now able to run for some 6km over 40 minutes.

I am not going to win any races, I am not breaking any records, but switching up the training program with an objective to complete a 5k parkrun has really set my running on a better, fresher course.

I have enormous respect for the #couchto5k program. It was after all, the thing that got me from running out of breath within 30 meters of starting, like something from a comedy film, to running in a more sustainable, progressive way. For that I will be eternally grateful. But I was conscious of the self-imposed limits. It is a mental trick to think beyond the end of the next interval, something I am not very good at it seems. ‘Today, we’ll run for 16 minutes’. OK, I say to myself, I can do that. And at the end of the 14th or 15th minute I am spent.

When I started the program I am now on, it was like talking to someone who just didn’t care about your self-imposed limits at all.  ‘Your next run will be 20 minutes, with an option to run for a further 10 if you feel strong enough.’ So that became the challenge.

It’s been a struggle, no doubt. But the results have been pretty good from my perspective. My range is increasing, I am now running into town and back again, a distance that I wouldn’t have thought twice about driving before. Today’s run took me into the countryside and then back home. I can really see the appeal and I am looking forward to getting stronger so that I can relax into the run and take a look around.

“Every expert began as a beginner.” Francis Kong.