When I started this new regime I downloaded a brilliant app for my iPhone called Couch To 5K. I love anything gadgety, geeky or remotely iternet-related. So to find something that was all of these rolled into one was a brilliant incentive to get me off my ass. And the fact it was called couch to 5k meant it was practically written for me! (although I'm conveniently trying to blank from my mind the fact that I'm doing a 10k and that I've got double the work...)
This is how it works. I put my headphones on, select the week and day I'm on in my training program, and start running. The intervals change every time I do it so in week one I'd run for a minute, then a voice interrupts the music to tell me to start walking. Then after a minute walking he tells me to run again, and so on. He tells me when I'm halfway through, and there's literally no better sound than his robotic faux-American voice at the end when it says "cool down."
I'd never heard of this application before, but since I started, I've discovered loads of people in my office are using it. And even more people are out running regularly. Just about everyone I know is currently training for a 10K or other. Maybe this was always the case but I always tuned it out before. Now I find myself having around six or seven conversations about running a day. It definitely seems THE cool thing to be doing at the moment. And now the clocks have gone forward and the nights are lighter, I can only imagine it's going to get more popular. I'm even considering buying new trainers and running gear after pay day. (Pay day traditionally being a day reserved for me to buy CDs, takeaways and more unecessary items of jewellery).
Tonight the man in my earphones made me run around the park for eight whole minutes before I got a break. Then I walked for five and then ran another eight. This is the longest I have managed to date and it wasn't as difficult as I was expecting. I ran all over Westburn Park tonight and for the last two minutes, when my calves were starting to really feel the strain, I ran uphill. I was so pleased to come to the end and discover that I still had more puff in me and could have carried on for longer.
I've started leaving the dog behind for these runs because they are getting longer and longer and I need all my concentration. It's not that he can't take the pace (he really can - trust me). But he has a habit now of veering off to one side in front or behind me, and this causes mid-jogging pirouettes to stop his lead winding around me legs which just make me look weird, frankly.
Now there's a big milestone looming. The next part of my training plan says I've got to run for 20 minutes without stopping. I'm quietly confident that I'll manage it, and if I do this will give me a strong conviction that I'll manage the whole 10k in just under two months time. So I'm a little excited but a little anxious. One thing that's for sure is the man in my earphones is getting more and more sadistic.
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