Progress report....

None.

How depressing

I thought I'd just post up a quickie after the Great South weekend, and what do I find? The last post.  From February. Saying exactly what I'm about to conclude now.

Which is that 5k doesn't work for me and I'm not going to do it any more and I'll stick to 1ks and 1 milers instead.

Could have saved 8 months of sweaty red faced selfies. Where is the glamour?

Less talk more run!

I've just completed a 5 week running plan.  Not the many variations of C25k, with or without virtual zombies, but Too Fat To Run 5 weeks to 5k. 

So, the plan is far more to my taste than the bitty C25ks and I would definitely recommend it to anyone like me who finds running/walking for 90 second intervals (leg lifts on a treadmill?) then finishing on a 15 minute run is completely against common sense.

if you do what Julie tells you to do, you will get there in the 5 weeks.  If, like me, you have to over-analyse everything, you may still get there, but you will probably do everyone's heads in, as well as your own.

Which has got me wondering about the negative voices in my head- why are they there, what purpose do they serve?  One to ponder, but not today.


In the five weeks, I have faithfully followed each instruction and experimented with different things.  Although yesterday I was feeling poorly and really not up to running, I went out and walked the 5k, to make sure I wasn't completely copping out. When I went to write it in my journal, I realised that this was in fact the 5th time over the 5 weeks that  I have run/walked/jogged (or all three) 5k.  I have also been out in all weathers and temperatures, at all times of day and night, irrespective of how tired/fed up from the working day I have felt, and the heat rash/eczema which flares up during exercise.

So I am taking this to be my achievement- not so much the actual 5k, as I feel I've got a way to go with this, but the fact that I have stuck it out and not found excuses. 

And been brave enough to come last at a parkrun and then again at another one, and still want to go back for more (but not today). 

And tried out a different gym, and enjoyed the treadmill and competitive atmosphere of being lined up in a row, in the window, close enough to punch your neighbour while taking in the inspiring view. Which got me a medal, as I entered it for a virtual run. If I can ever get photos to line up, I deserve another medal:

I am going to give myself a week off to get well then start the plan again next week, and maybe this time, I'll be running all 5k at the end??!!  SHUT UP, VOICES....

Best of all, my daughter is loving all the sport and we've made her a medal for each time she goes out- yesterday she ran to the park, four times round it and home, which is a mile, and another badge to go on it, in addition to the 'mini parkrun' she did with Daddy while I was hauling myself round the course.

more virtual runs booked for the next few months, and a muddy 5k in July, to keep me motivated.

I've got till July to remember where I put this after the photo....

Maybe I'm not cut out (yet) for 3 mile runs, but if I can run a mile, i can keep up with my daughter. And I know I can run a mile.  

7 mile hike and no side effects

Other than an uncharacteristic lack of enthusiasm for hitting the gym this week. Need to get to 2.5 miles this week as I've come up with an idiotic plan on holiday next week....plus another zombie Apocalypse nightmare last night. At least I note my survival skills are improving, if only in my sleep.

Today I will run 2 miles

There, it's official. The negative voices are having a field day with this one, I'm really scared! And yet I did 1.9 on Sunday. Got to get over it. There will be treats at the other endf in the shape of Bluetooth earphones so I don't fly off the treadmill again.…

c25k zombies

Updates since the last post:

I have signed up for a real run outside, in the world. It's not till October, it's on flat, flat Madeira drive in Brighton, I've found a friend to do it with me, and as it's the color run, we both get to have paint thrown at us. Don't care. Actually, I WANT paint thrown at me.

Have restarted training in the form of the Zombies Run 5k aop, which so far has been so gentle, I don't feel I'm doing enough. Have also had a go at doing the sessions outside with mixed results: road flatter, but off road softer, and if family present I end up having to run round a bench for most of it so as not to leave them.

Running mag has started to demoralise me. Every mention of 5k is in the context of beginners. Yes, I'm a beginner. But what's wrong with 5k as a goal? There's plenty it has to offer, improve speed, change terrain, do it alone for fun or with others in a race, etc. Going to stop reading running magazines as they're starting to make me feel 5k is a poor man's 10k and really we should all be thinking about marathons. Plus 3 people I know have done/are training for/regularly run marathons. Even if I wanted to, which I don't, I get a hour for lunch, including changing and pretending to shower...

Two morebthings: hubby has bought two sets of running shoes. Daughter is now coaching me by yelling at me to run whenever we're outside. And once again I have whatever virus is going round the nursery and so I can't pound a treadmill with a pounding head, so another week's setback. But I just got into a skirt that didn't fit last year. OK, that's about 5 things. Who's counting?

the honey heavy dew of sleep. what did Shakespeare know about insomniac toddlers?

I've been given a wonderful blogging opportunity, so I thought I'd make the most of it. Florence has given me the gift of time, aka I haven't been able to go back to sleep since she started calling for me at 4, not even when she finally realised at 5.45 that I wasn't joking about walking her to the station and putting her on the next train. Thankfully the commuters of haslemere were spared the sight of an insane mummy in pyjamas dragging snivelling child onto platform 3. Partly as most of them get the 5.32.  So after 2 hours of putting her back to bed, staying with her, going back to my bed for anything up to 30 seconds, not staying with her, not going back to bed, waking daddy up, giving up and starting the day at 5, then deciding to go back to bed, but not doing, then having several long talks about the virtues of a well-rested household, whereby a seemingly satisfactory agreement was reached, followed by a complete disregard for any promises hitherto made involving bed and the return to it, until mummy ran out of ideas and a sobbing child finally took herself back to her room, where she has remained sine 6am. I believe in parenting terms, this is deemed a 'success' and we are to repeat the process each night until she is sleeping all night without calling mummy by the time she is legally entitled to vote.

It does not help the issue that 5am in daylight terms cannot really be called 'night' despite £50 of blackout blinds from c&h in Guildford, bought in desperation last week.

The only obvious solution, I think is to get jobs as redcoats, so we can live at butlins permanently, as that seems to be the only place in the world where she stays in bed and SLEEPS.

To make things worse, last week's sleepfest has reminded my body what it feels like to be a normal person, and it doesn't want to give that up, so I am finding myself less sympathetic about giving up any shred of lunchtime or evening activity, as too knackered to do anything. I have even signed up for a run in October, which last week seemed easily achievable.

Ho hum. And potty training is a whole other story. Seems Florence is gifted in many ways, excelling at nursery in art and French, and progressing well in ballet, but all anyone wants is for her to stay in bed and not soil herself. Which is all most of us want, frankly.

I don't want to end up on morning television as the mother of the teenager in nappies...

Oh look, its nearly time to wake up. Toodle pip.

C25k more thoughts

Last week I got fed up with the endless setbacks, and the fact that this should have been goal week. I'd bought a running mag which has a different approach to the app, in that you get the longest run out of the way at the start of the session, rather than build up to it. This made more sense to me, as I had spent every session so far dreading the 'hard' bit when i'm tired. Found i could do 8 mins, then next session I set a goal of 10 and managed 12.
This was the end of following other people's plans!

At the end of the week, with nothing to lose, I decided to just get on with it and try 20 mins straight. And I managed it! Goal no 1. As I keep reading, its the first few mins that are hardest, after that I got into a rhythm and got on with it, and there was no way I was going to stop for the sake of another 3 mins, 2 mins, 1 min. I wanted the man on the treadmill next to me to know – wanted to shout “I’m doing it” and wave my arms about, but I didn’t.



And so I did it. 20 mins solid running. 1 mile and a half. Goal 1 achieved. Then I went home and discovered Goal 1 is actually 30 mins.



So this week, I thought stuff it, got nothing to lose, other than not being able to manage 20 mins ever again as it was a fluke.



And yesterday I ran for 25 min.  I now have an app - Map My Run, which is brilliant for logging runs and seeing what I’ve managed.  Husband is on it too, so we can share our walks/runs and I can ping him during the day to show min my efforts.



On Friday, if I can get 30 straight mins done, I’ve got to Goal 1 and I’ve got there before my holiday, which I seem to remember being my personal goal.  And that’s skipping out a couple of the weeks of the programme which wasn’t going anywhere and just getting on with it.



I’ve treated myself to a Fitbit as I want to know what my heartrate’s doing during the day- it’s too high at 178 on the treadmill.  Hopefully all these gadgets and apps talking to each other will give me a better picture of what exercise I’m really doing during the day, and somehow the fitbit’s going to help me lose a stone and get the trousers I saw on Saturday.



Feeling like I’m getting through the first, hard, hurdle of having it all ahead of me and being too fat and lazy to want to make it work.



Sadly, before all of this, I have to weigh myself- just waiting for my boss to go out before I nip to the chemist and stand in the window naked (nearly) for the scales to shout out the horrible truth to the whole shop.  Hoping  I overestimated it yesterday, suspect I haven’t.



I am back- I will admit this in public- I am 5 foot 2 and 12 stone 9.  Allowing 2 pounds for clothes (honestly, what’s the difference) it means I’ve put back on more than a stone since Slimming World moved their group and I stopped going.  I refuse to give them that satisfaction, so that stone is coming off for starters.  Fitbit- I need your help.



So- the goals are:



Run for 20 mins- done

Run for 30 mins -goal one part two

Run for 40 mins, which gets me to 5k and part three of goal one.

Get the 5k down to 30 mins, which is proper goal and the point where I’ll start to say “I run”

Take the 5k outside into the real world

Get the 5k down to 30 mins, which is going to take a long time, I think and will be the point at which I can say “I’m a runner” and then seal it by entering a 5k run.  And getting a medal.  I want a medal.



Last night I went for a 1.5 mile walk to see what my walking pace is, compared to treadmill.  As I have read elsewhere, the real world is much harder and I averaged 3.5mph.  That can keep.



In the meantime, I could stand to lose anything up to 4 STONE!!! So, realistically, I want to get one off, which equals a dress size and a new pair of trousers.  Some of the rest will follow, hopefully, with all this activity.



It will be interesting to see how much weight comes off by exercising, not by just dieting and hopefully this means it won’t just ping straight back on the minute I fancy a pie.