C25K - Day 2

To take the place of the 10 week Fresh Start fitness/health programme, I have started the 9 week (estimated) NHS Choices Couch to 5K running programme. The C25K programme is a downloadable podcast that encourages you to build up to running a full 5 kilometres.

Week 4 consists of a 5 minute warm up walk, followed by a 3 minute run, a 90 second walk, a 5 minute run and a 2 and a half minute walk. The runs/walks are then repeated once and you end with a 5 minute cool down walk. The total running time is 16 minutes.

The second run was done on the 18th of July. My usual path was quite busy with construction workers and even blocked off in a few places, forcing me to run around them. There also seemed to be a larger than normal amount of dog walking traffic for some reason. Despite the increase in traffic, I managed to do 4.5 km during the podcast itself, including the warm up and cool down walks.

I found this run to be quite a bit easier than the first run of the week, surprisingly. The backs of my thighs were really tight and achy from cleaning my son's room the day before (lots of squats and bending over at the waist) and I was honestly thinking of taking an extra couple of rest days, doing the second run on Friday and the third run on Monday. Instead, I went out hoping that running would help my sore thighs instead of hurt them more. I was partly right. While I was running, my legs didn't hurt at all, but once I slowed back down to a walk, the pain came back with a vengeance! For the first time ever, the running parts were actually easier than the walking parts of the podcast!

It's the last run of the week tomorrow, then on to Week 5!