My February roundup is actually pretty much contained in my Body Coach App Cycle 2 Review. I did a bit of running and a bit of stuff from the app… and it was fine. I have now done a bit of planning for March and I have changed a couple of things. So the first thing to note is that I have gone back a week on the running plan. I could push on but I’m in no rush and I don’t feel settled into it so I am repeating a week before moving on. It feels sensible and right. I don’t need to reach a specific distance by a specific point and I’d rather feel comfortable doing what I am doing than constantly pushing for further. I will continue with the two 30 minute runs during the week. I think I will try and run as much of those as I can without walking – but depending on the route there will likely be some walking. West Yorkshire ain’t flat! My weekend runs this month will go up to 5.25 miles and I will try and do those run/walk with 45 second running/30 second walking. Let’s see how that goes. I might even repeat another week if the 4.25 miles I am to do this weekend feels really hard.

I am still aiming to do 5 Body Coach workouts each week but if I am struggling I am happy to drop one and just do the run. I so far quite like the cycle 3 workouts so maybe motivation won’t be as much of an issue as in Cycle 2 and I can get them done in the morning. I have gone back to work on a phased return today so I now need to fit work into life again so there’ll be some experimenting with how that works best. I like the idea of a workout first thing and then running after work to draw a line under the work day but that might not actually be feasible. We’ll see.

Cycles 1 and 2 suggested that having the rest days as I had them didn’t really work. I had Tuesday and Saturday as rest days. It seemed like a good idea in planning. It left one weekend day free from workouts and running to devote to other things and then split the week into 2 workout days, one rest day, 3 workout days, one rest day… Except that on the Saturday I often felt like I wanted to do something, the workout or run could be done any time without fitting around other commitments (and now work) and somehow felt less pressured. This was the case even where I had completed workouts on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday already. Somehow I never felt like I needed or wanted the rest on Saturday or on Sunday. Monday was also good, a workout somehow nicely sets up the week. On Tuesday I’d welcome the rest day and then not really get going again, sometimes going for a run or doing a workout on Wednesday but struggling or then taking an extra rest day on the Thursday. So for March I am trying something slightly different. I am going to workout/run on 5 days and then have 2 back to back rest days. So Tuesday and Wednesday become rest days. It might not work but it is worth seeing if it does.

And yes, of course this blog post is just an excuse to share the photos of Odin and Einstein helping us with our planning.