C25K - Week 3 Day 1

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 3 consists of a 5 minute warm up walk, followed by a 90 second run, a 90 second walk, a 3 minute run and a 3 minute walk (then repeat all once). The final 3 minute walk is considered your cool down walk.

Over the weekend I had come to accept that I wouldn't be able to start week 3 until next week due to my mp3 player having fizzled (my computer refuses to find it). This morning however, I remembered that my mobile phone plays mp3s and after a bit of searching, I found the headphones for it. So I was able to start week 3 this week after all!

This run was really easy! When Laura (the woman narrating the NHS C25K podcast) said what the running times were going to be, I thought "There's no way I can run for 3 minutes straight!". But once the first 3 minute run started, it didn't seem so bad and it was over before I got out of breath. Having a 3 minute walk afterwards helped out a lot though. I think if I would have only had a 90 second walk after the 3 minutes, I wouldn't have found it as easy! The podcast ended right at 2 laps around the housing estate - around 1.7 miles.

My next run (and next weigh in) is Wednesday.