Finding My Inner Runner

Two years ago, having finally shaken of the tendonitis that had put paid to my first attempt at the Couch to 5k plan, I finally put all the excuses behind me, laced up my shoes that had been gathering dust since I unboxed them at Christmas, and started my running journey in earnest. There were a couple of "training runs" along the way, but I completed the programme in May 2019 and quickly moved on to JuJu's 10k plan which got me to 10k on 1 July that year. Before 2019 was finished, I'd get to 10 miles in October and my first HM in November and, by the time the bells rang in 2020, I'd clocked up over 500 miles. Then, 2020... Well, actually, from a running perspective, it turned out better than anticipated. Yes, OK, so the final parkrun was a year ago this weekend just past, and all the organised events I'd entered were cancelled or postponed until some indeterminate point in the future, but running, it seemed, was an escape and helped my cope with the whole...

If you were to ask me what the weather was on any given day last year then for 364/365 of them I'd be guessing. The exception was 7 May 2019. To narrow it down, it was about 5:30pm on that date. It was raining. Why is this fact etched so firmly in my mind? Quite simply, 7 May was the day I'd been building up to for two and a bit months. I'd been psyching myself up to it over the last few runs. May 7 was the day I was going to graduate from Couch to 5k; and it was raining! Not heavily, but it was definitely wet. Having been building myself up for as long as I had, I wasn't going to let some trifling precipitation dampen my spirits so I so off. I got to 30 minutes having covered 3.8km and, of course, I kept on running; running until I got to the fabled 5k mark . It took me 39:20. Yes, I broke the rules. The 10% rule was never going to hold me back that night. I'd graduated and I'd run 5k and I was supremely chuffed with myself (it would take another 40 ...

Monday is traditionally my "long" run, but for a combination of reasons, I just wasn't feeling it so I postponed for the evening. On tuesday evening, I still wasn't really in the mood, but I wasn't going to let myself talk me into missing out another night so I head out and, despite everything, I managed a smidge over 5¾k in 40 mins. It wasn't really the distance or the pace I was looking for. Still, a run is a run. Thursday, felt much more positive. Nice evening, not too warm. Chose a new route and 80 minutes later, 10½k was in the bag. Might have done it slightly faster if it hadn't been for one 50m stretch that was so overgrown and tangled I had to walk to avoid the risk of turning an ankle or worse. Got home feeling much more upbeat than I had on Monday. That's the second month in a row that my first run of the month has been a 10k. Do I sense a new tradition brewing? Today, parkrun. I was on a mission. My previous best was 33:09 and I w...

Every year, after the 7s are done and the season finally comes to an end, I take a couple of weeks off, and then start thinking ahead to the start of the new season. Generally, this is accompanied by a certain sense of dread as, despite all my good intentions, much of the fitness gained over the season that has just passed, fades away over the summer. Last year, I decided to do something about it and started my C to 5k journey in June. My rationale was this: over the course of a game (80 mins), I cover 5-6km. Albeit this is very stop start and I probably never run more than about 1 minute before some infringement means I blow my whistle and bring things to a halt. Unless someone catches an interception on their own try line and then runs the length of the pitch (100m), it’s very rare that I run more than 50-75m in one burst. I figured that if I could cover 4km in 30-40 minutes non-stop, then that would mean doing it stop/start over 80 minutes would be no problem. That was the t...

Despite superhuman levels of faffage getting ready, and the fact it was raining, went out and only went and did it. Go me... To be fair, given how everything has been building to this run, I don't think anything would have stopped me from heading out tonight. My main concern was just not injuring myself before I got to the end and having to delay my graduation celebrations. As it turned out, I was feeling good, things just flowed, the songs in my ears went by one by one and, as I had ran 35 minutes instead of 30 last time out, I decided to push on and did the full 5k in a very respectable 39:21. I know we keep saying its the time and not the distance, but just this once it was kind of special... Will I get 5k below 30 minutes? Who knows? That's something for the future, if it happens at all. The fact is, just a few weeks ago I was finding runs of 90 seconds tough, and now I can run 5k, and if that isn't an achievement worth celebrating then I don't know what is....

Well, a "leisurely" 3.9k to conclude the week 8 runs and bring up a total of 11k (the rugby at the weekend not included) across the three runs. Can't quite believe I've only 3 more "6 song" runs left to do. I never actually thought that I'd get this far, or at least, get here without having to do several attempts at the longer runs, but it seems like I may just finish this after all. Back in march, when I set out on this journey, the idea that I might only be 3 runs away from completing the programme wasn't even something I could imagine; now I am actually looking forward to it. Bring on next week...

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...

I guess it had to happen at some point. There was always going to be one run that was going to trip me up, and tonight's run was the one. I'm actually a little surprised that it hasn't happened before, but such is life... I'm not exactly sure what went wrong. The first three minute run section was fine. The next run section of five minutes was OK, although I struggled a bit in the final 45 seconds or so. The next three minute section was pretty much the same as the first had been, so I thought I'd recovered. A minute or so into the final five minute second and I discovered that everything was definitely not OK and I came grinding reluctantly to a halt. Walked for 30 seconds, started running again, but no; less than a minute later there was nothing there. I didn't think I was doing anything different from the first run of this week, but tonight it just didn't happen for me; which is a bit of a disappointment. So, rest, regroup, and try again in a coup...

So, after my " triumphant return " to the plan last week, I did one more repeat of the week 2 run and decided to move on to week 3. The runs this week were definitely more demanding, but not excessively so, and definitely not as tough as I'd thought they might be. Clearly I'm not going to get complacent, there's still a long way to go and I'm not looking forward to those longer runs in the second half of the plan; I really think I will struggle with those. Having said that, thousands (if not millions) of people have completed it, so it must be possible. Anyway, week 3 done without mishap, so now it's take a rest then move on to week 4...

So, nearly 9 months after a bad flare up of tendonitis put paid to my previous attempt to do this, I've finally taken the plunge and decided to start again. Now that the evenings are that bit lighter and definitely getting longer, there didn't really seem like any real reason for putting it off any longer. I will be honest, the thought of going back to the very start filled me with dread; I simply couldn't face those seemingly endless (although in fact, only eight) repetitions of one minute, so I decided to see if I could pick up where I was forced to leave last time around on week 2. The worst that could happen was that I found I couldn't do it and would need to go back to the very start after all. As it happened, I needn't have worried. despite there being a whole extra 90 seconds of running in week 2 compared to week 1, I managed it pretty easily. It seems my rehabilitation back to fitness to allow me to reassume my refereeing duties had done enough to allo...