Happily Ever After

Life in The Rural Retreat with a beautiful wife, three cats, garden wildlife, a camera, a computer – and increasing amounts about running

Earlier posts can be found on Adventures of a Lone Bass Player, where this blog began life. Recent entries can be found here.

Looking Ahead

by Russell Turner - 14:57 on 04 November 2017

The running shorts were donned again this morning after two days off which had allowed my twingey hip muscle time to recover. By the end of the run/walk (which is now mostly running) I could feel it again but not as much as after the last session, so with luck it’s just One Of Those Things and will continue to recover. I’ll be careful.

This morning’s effort was another set of three seven-minute runs broken by three-minute walks (although I knocked a minute off the last one) plus an unofficial extra seven-minute run to take me over the 5k. Next time all the walks are two minutes, then Week Five of the couch to 5k begins on Wednesday (the Durham trip disrupted my routine) with nine-minute runs, but only two of them.

The programme ends after six weeks with an unbroken 30-minute run. This still feels unlikely, but three weeks ago I was unable to sustain five two-minute runs with four-minute walks; now it seems incredible that I couldn’t. Hopefully, in a couple of weeks I’ll look back and a mere seven minutes will be equally incredible, and in a few months I’ll sneer at only half-an-hour. Time will tell.

So now I’m looking ahead to the six-week gap between the end of the C2 5k and the start of the 16-week beginners’ schedule laid out in my London Marathon magazine, concluding at the start line next April. The most challenging day of the first week is a 10-minute walk, 30-minute run and 10-minute walk – not much more than my short-term target – which means I’ll have the gap weeks to get comfortable running 5ks and lower my heart rate. It’s all quite exciting. Fingers crossed for another mild winter.

Part of that six weeks will be spent following Matchgirl and Cathy the Runner to the Florence Marathon where they’ll both attain times I can only dream about. Finishing London in a time that’s not embarrassing is my current target. Now I’m a committed runner-in-training I can’t abandon my efforts for the twelve days we’ll be away, which means the gear will have to go with me so I can get in a few half-hour sessions in the Italian sun. Will that make me an international runner?

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