Finding My Inner Runner

Ask any referee, and we have a love/hate relationship with 7s. On the one hand it's a bit of an end of season blow-off and you can have some lighthearted banter with the players. On the other, it's fast, constant and comes at the end of a long, gruelling season. So, today... Six games, 7 minutes each half, with a two minute turnaround at the break and 5 minutes between games. It's an U18s fixture, so I have at least 30 years on them. At one point, I'm devastated to discover that I still have one game left as I was already mentally heading for my shower. In the end 10¼km. Not non-stop, because it's rugby and spread over 12 seven minute periods that are stop-start due to the very nature of the game, but I'm still claiming it. Just before I started Couch to 5k, I did a 3 match tournament of 20 minute games, one after the other and was practically crawling by the end of it. Today, I added 3k and 20 minutes duration to that and I actually still felt like

So, that's week 7 completed although, for a number of reasons W8R1 is unlikely to be before next Thursday, but such is life. Since my 2.9k in W6R3, I've pushed out to 3.3k today. Interesting to see if my pace continues to build. Based on current pace, I need 35 mins for 5k, but my goal is to actually be able to run non-stop for 40 mins (one half of a rugby match) so I suspect I'll need to build for another 4-5 weeks after Couch to 5K graduation to get to my target time. Assuming I do it, I wonder what distance I'm going to be covering in that time given that I can walk 4k in 40 mins. Anyway, that's in the future; still got to get weeks 8 and 9 under my belt first...

Should have done W7R2 on Easter Sunday but, as it was such a nice day, spent most of it at the seaside instead (East Lothian is good for that). Did it yesterday instead so, all going to plan, W7R3 tomorrow. Then it gets a bit tricky. Due to a 7s tournament on Saturday, and a few days down in London at the start of next week, it looks like W8R1 won't be until next Thursday. Can't be helped, but as its my first 7s tournament since I started the programme, it'll be interesting to see how the additional fitness I've gained helps me. FWIW over the course of a full 15-a-side game, I usually cover 5-6km, albeit in stop/start bursts of 10-30 seconds, covering 5-50m. 7s, well that's a whole other kettle of fish. Pray for me...

As I've mentioned , I've made a playlist of songs that are 5 mins (give or take a couple of seconds) in length. I don't count the beats, simply the songs to help me mark time. In week 7 I'm not doing 25 min runs, I'm doing 5 song runs. Given my eclectic music tastes built up over 40 odd years, it does mean I occasionally go from Iron Maiden to Cyndi Lauper, which is an odd juxtaposition, but it's all good. I do draw the line at Coldplay though, that's just too self-masochistic.

After bombing out at 17 minutes on Monday, today went to plan and felt like there was something left in the tank. Changed my route to run along side the Tynewater rather than on the old railway path. I don't know if that actually made any difference but on the slightly softer underfoot conditions, there was no repetition of the hip niggle that cut short my attempt on Monday evening, I shortened my stride, found I actually could slow it down, and still managed to cover 2.9km. Now to see if I can stretch that a little over the three week 7 runs. And, apparently, I'm now a " runner " and I even have the badge to prove it...

So: iPod playlist comprising songs of 5 minutes in length ✅  Trainers ✅  Shorts ✅  Day-glo pink refereeing top ✅  I head out to tackle the first of the 25 minute runs... Sadly, things don't quite go as planned and after 17 minutes and about 2.4km in, my hip decides it's not having any more and I grind to a halt. Plus side, I did my fastest ever 1k and 1 mile, which, I suspect, may just have contributed slightly to me only managing 17 minutes. Still, these things happen. Rest up today, subject myself to the dreaded foam roller tomorrow and try again, perhaps slightly slower on Wednesday.

So there we have it; week 6, run 2 in the bag (it still counts if I had to stop for 10 seconds to tie my lace about a minute into the second run, right?), and the last of the dreaded interval runs are now behind me. I will be honest here and say that while I'm facing the unbroken runs with a bit of trepidation (know I did the 20 minute run at the end of week 5 but 25 minutes seems like another order of magnitude altogether), I'm not going to miss doing intervals. So, onwards and upwards and on to the "endurance" runs. I hope the weather is kind to me the first few runs...

Well, I'll be completely honest with you, like a lot of people when faced with this run, I did not expect to be able to do the whole 20 minutes without stopping at the first attempt; but somehow I've done it. Up until now, I've been marking time by counting footsteps; which has been fine up to 8 minutes, but wasn't never going to work for 20, so another approach was needed for this run. I decided that the best way to tackle this was to create a playlist consisting of six 5 minute songs; one for the warm-up, one for the cool-down, and the other 4 for the actual run. I still had the app in the background letting me know my progress, but instead of fixating on the time, I just hummed along (mentally) to my chosen tunes and, lo and behold, I ran for 4 whole songs and I was told it was time to stop. So here I am; in two days time I'll have been back on the plan for exactly a month and I can now run 20 minutes without stopping. Who would have thought it? Certainly n

Well, that's what the app says, so I guess it must be true. After the frustrations of Wednesday, I redid run two successfully on Friday. I didn't really do anything different (apart from finishing it this time) so I moved on to the third and final run of week 4 today. It was a bit warmer today, so I took it a little bit slower, and chose a different route that is slightly flatter and firmer underfoot. Once again I made it safely to the end without mishap. I suspect Wednesday will just have to be put down as "one of those things" and I should be grateful that it didn't derail me and that there was no lasting damage. So, anyway, week 5 now awaits and there is that rather ominous 20 minute run waiting for me at the end of it. Looking forward with a mixture of trepidation and anticipation. Let's see how it goes...