Tag: 5km

Hills and speed and some continuous running

Jess Guth2 Comments

So I managed to get out in spite of the ice the other day but then Monday and Tuesday there were the usual excuses – to dark, too tired, too late now, too full from food.

Wednesday I got home earlier so we went for a run. We went uphill. Up up up towards Ilkley Moor. I forget how relentless it is but Kath took us from landmark to landmark run/walking. My calves held up ok but were tight by the time we got to the top. We turned round and ran all the way back down. It’s a lovely run down. It’s undulating but down all the way if that makes sense. It means that I can run faster than I usually do and sustain it for longer which helps me get used to what a higher pace actually feels like. It was a good session.

Thursday we did our speed work for the week. I don’t like speed work. I find it mentally really hard. I’m actually sure I could physically run faster but somehow I can’t make myself sustain it. Most types of speed work make me really miserable and grumpy. However, the runners world fartlek session which I have blogged about before is sort of ok. This was the 4th time I’ve done it. I could feel the hills in my legs from the day before and I was quite tired. I was fairly sure my pace would be awful. I was therefore pleasantly surprised that I was actually in line with previous attempts. With some more consistent running, hill, speed and strength work I may even improve a bit! (previous attempts in brackets)

  • 10 minute warm up:  12.46 (12.27,12.20, 12.43 pace);
  • 5 minutes: 10.35 (10.37,10.26, 10.27);
  • 1minute 30 second rest
  • 4 minutes: 10.09 (10.30, 10.11, 10.18) pace;
  • 1minute 30 second rest
  • 3 minutes: 10.23 (11.03, 9.56, 10.18) pace;
  • (then 5.5 minute rest);
  • 2 minutes: 9.37 (10.17, 8.56, 9.52);
  • 1minute 30 second rest
  • 1 minute 30 secs: 9.05 (9.41, 9.09 ,9.47) pace;
  • 1minute 30 second rest
  • 1 minute: 8.50 (8.41, 9.28, 9.29) pace;
  • 1minute 30 second rest
  • 30 seconds: 7.54 (7.39, 9.17, 8.37)  pace;
  • 1 minute rest
  • 30 seconds: 7.36 (7.38, 8.28, 7.39) pace.
  • 10 min cool down 18.38 (14.23, 14.17,15.16) pace

The worst section of this is always the 3 minute run, always. It’s when I nearly give up every time. 3 silly little minutes. Well, I’ll have another go in a couple of weeks or so.

My legs welcomed rest day Friday!

Today we were originally going to do 8 miles at Bolton Abbey but we had a lazy morning instead. We switched our days around and did our 1 hour run today. We set off at the same time but went in different directions – Kath turned back because she wasn’t feeling great – I think I must have passed on my non-distinct crappy feeling from yesterday. I had been running for about 15 minutes when my ankles seemed to just set and my calves went tight. I kept going a little bit but then stopped to walk a little bit. It didn’t ease so I stopped at a bridge and stretched my legs out a bit. Running continuously obviously wasn’t a good plan. I re-set my watch to run/walk and to 5k. That went fine, in fact I was pleased with the relative ease of that run/walk. At the end of the 5k I reset the watch again and walked the 3/4 mile home. 5.6 in total and I have now done more miles than I did in all of January last year.

A Good Run

Jess GuthLeave a comment

Just checking in to report that I had a good run. It was a good run because I enjoyed it, because the autumn colours were stunning in the slowly fading sun light, because the cold felt comforting rather than biting and because it’s been a pretty perfect Sunday so far.

Sundays should always be like this. There were giggles and smiles, un-put-downable IMG_7885books, coffee in the garden, cold noses, gardening projects done together, frogs and logs for the fire (no, just the logs are for the fire, not the frogs, they’re happy in the pond which will soon be bigger) and the cosy warmth from that come from that. There were cosy cats and inquisitive cats and cats being chased by dogs (well, one cocky little Einstein being chased by a dog he probably got too close to) and now there’s cats enjoying the fire.

Running should also always be like this too. I pushed myself, I’m sweaty and the last hill before home resulted in jelly legs and stupid huffing and puffing but it was just nice to be out, to be moving, to feel my body warm up, to feel everything work as it should, to look around, see the ducks along the canal and the geese flying overhead. It felt the right sort of hard and now I am going to join the cats and curl up with Einstein and we can finish off our Sunday in perfect style

Reboot 5k

Jess GuthLeave a comment

I don’t really like running at the moment. I like that I am running at all – I’d hate to not be running. I am sure I am both physically and mentally much healthier for running but I don’t like it much. I also liked having run this morning and I had a really productive day overall which is probably due in large part to having got out this morning.

I’ve not run consistently really. I need to. I will like it more, or at least hate it less when I do. This morning’s 5k was fairly horrible. Far harder than it should be, far slower than I’d like it to be but it was a run and I will have another run tomorrow and we’ve planned a weekend route which I am really looking forward to actually.

So there – yet another reboot and I hate running but not as much as I’d hate not running

Didn’t enjoy that

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Thursday I found out that my application for a promotion has been accepted (effective 1st September) so instead of running we went out for a meal. We were going to run on Friday morning but didn’t. Can’t remember why. We were meant to go at lunch time but we’d got food all wrong and both felt flakey so didn’t. So we set out to do a short loop in the evening. We left just after 8pm.

Well the run was uneventful. I didn’t find it physically that hard, mentally it was fine. There’s just nothing to say about it. I just didn’t enjoy it. I’ve never felt like this about a run before. I’ve hated it because it’s been hard, I’ve really struggled physically, I’ve really struggled mentally, I’ve enjoyed some and I always enjoy having run. But not yesterday. I felt ok before going and then just flat, a bit ‘meh’ while running and flat after. It felt a bit like going to a bad lecture. Not bored exactly but just bit flat and grumpy and disillusioned with life, love and the universe.

It’s a new one and I hope one that isn’t repeated all that often. Today I have stuffed my face with cake, tomorrow I shall run again.

I don’t remember the beginning

Jess Guth2 Comments

I have had several conversations (face to face or virtual) recently about starting running and about my running journey and about how the hell I got to be someone who can run several miles without walking and who isn’t scared of taking on distance. I hadn’t really realised I was no longer scared of distance. I noticed at Endure24 that I felt like I had a right to be there whereas at a 5k or 10k road race I’d feel like an impostor and I’d feel apologetic for my lack of speed. At some point on this journey I must have realised I can do distance – it may involve lots of walking and it will never be fast but I will get there.

But how did I get here? I can trot out advice about starting running that is sort of based on my experience but only sort of because to be honest, I don’t really remember. I remember starting (at various points in my life but particularly around January 2015) a fairly typical couch to 5k programme. I’ve never finished one. The last iteration I hated. I felt miserable before a run, during a run and mostly also after a run. I wanted to do it to get fitter and shift the substantial extra weight but I hated it. Instead of giving up I looked for something else. I tried Jeff Galloway’s method of run/walk. Somehow this really helped. I don’t know what my first intervals were – I want to say 30 seconds running, 30 seconds walking but from nothing that actually sounds like quite a lot of running. I think if you’re going from no running at all even 10 seconds and then walking the rest of the minute is great.

So why did this work for me? Less pressure I guess. There wasn’t this constant ‘next time you’ve got to run for longer’ feeling. It was always – ‘you’re going out for 30 minutes and doing your thing’. I soon found that I was running faster, walking faster and overall going further in the 30 minutes. At some point I must have upped the running and played with intervals but I don’t remember how incremental this was or what we did – some of this may of course be in the early blog posts (haven’t gone back to look – I’m interested in me not really remembering). I remember for quite a while working with 3 minute running and either 30 seconds or 1 minute walking but then beginning to struggle with that as the distances increased and settling on what became my favourite of 2 minutes running and 1 minute walking. It’s what I come back to now when I am struggling – whether mentally or physically.

More recently, and I think this is a strange and tentative new found running confidence, I have wanted to run more consistently without walk breaks. It’s not that I don’t like run/walk or think it’s cheating – it’s not and I’m often faster doing run/walk than running consistently – it’s just that it feels like that’s next in my journey. I also feel like I want to be less regimented. I do often still walk a bit even on shorter runs but I run more by feel now. I use landmarks to determine my intervals and somehow that feels more relaxed than being ruled by the beep of a watch.

So do I have advice for anyone starting out? Yeah I do – it’s bloody hard and you have to try and enjoy it and the way to enjoy it is to rid your head of unrealistic expectations. Running for 30 seconds or even 20 or 10 sounds like nothing but it isn’t nothing. It’s a very very big something. Go out for 30 minutes and take each minute as it comes. Depending on your level of general fitness try running 10 seconds, 20, 30 or even 40 and then walk the rest of the minute. If you can do that comfortably for each of the 30 minutes, try upping the running bit next time. See how you go. Don’t feel like you have to keep increasing the running portion. Settle in at an interval you like and go with that for a bit. Don’t get too competitive,enjoy being outside, learn to look around, learn to smile while you’re running, give yourself permission to stop to look at something interesting. It’s not about getting through it or getting to the end of your 30 minutes having covered as much distance as possible – it’s about learning to love running and doing it for you. The rest will follow if you want it to – but it’s taken me this long to figure out that maybe I don’t care if it doesn’t. I like stopping and watching a heron on the canal bank and I like it far more than seeing a fast time on my garmin at the end of my run.