Well it's been a few months, but we are still on course.  We're now running 5km without too much trouble, having a bought a running machine to see us through the winter.

We're also swimming regularly which doesn't seem too difficult - we've also found out that there is some loch (lake) swimming just up the road for the summer months, but as it is still only 8 degrees outside we've not sampled this yet.  Maybe next week?  

We got a couple of wet suits for the swim so we need an excuse to get them on and into the water.

Ailments - yep, I've got sore knees and feet.  And my sciatica comes and goes.  Wifey has sore bits as well, but we're battling on.  

Got to get the bike out soon.

Eventually

We were two 30 minute runs in to completing week 9 of C25K and then unfortunately I was laid-up for 5 days.  I wasn't sure after so many rest days, and only just feeling better, I would manage 30 minutes for the next run, but hey, I surprised myself and indeed managed to run for the 30 minutes.

I think the hard work is now going to start as we need to try and keep running 3 times a week.

Scary news is that the provisional dates for Craggy Island have been released and it will be early in the new year when entries open.

Nearly there

Well, week 8 sees us doing 3 non-stop 28 minute runs.  We have been doing the usual street run during the week and then on Saturday we went round the loch again.  This time I ran with Laura and managed the 28 minutes.  I even ran past people who were cycling, although I do have to admit that the lady looked about 60 and as though it had been 58 years since she had been on a bike!

I guess it's not rocket science that next week will see us doing 3 non-stop 30 minute runs - I just hope that I can keep going for those extra minutes.

We seem to be lucky with the weather - another dry run in what was a very wet week.

I am very impressed

In little over a month my wife has gone from struggling to run for 90 seconds to last night running non stop for 28 minutes, and covering around 4.5km.  I am amazed by the improvement and also by her commitment to the process.  She is not a sporty person so I know that this has been really hard work for her and it is almost impossible for me to get over to her how impressed I am.  She even talked about failure the other day, just because she only managed to run for 25 minutes into a strong headwind - failure? THAT'S NOT FAILURE!!

We have decided to try to keep running for 30 minutes three times a week until Christmas time, just to consolidate what we have done so far.  Then we'll think about adding in some swimming at the local pool, saving the cycling for the better weather and some light.  It gets dark here at 4pm from now til March.  

walkjogrun

We are using walkjogrun.net to check on distances, times, heights and so on.  It's easy to use and much better than trying to work things out from OS maps.

Pushing the envelope

Week 7 now completed.  Three 25 minute non-stop runs.

Now that the clocks have changed it is dark when I get home, we thought the park we ran round was quite well lit and this is where we did the first run; the park is not that well lit!

Run number two was pounding the streets where at least we had street lamps lighting our way, but, the hard tarmac was quite tough going.

Run three, the envelope pusher, was a run round a local loch.  Hubby decided our own music compilation would be good to run to and it was to begin with; however, 'Touch Too Much' was just a touch too long for me and I had to walk through 'Chelsea Dagger' - picked up again for 'Rock and Roll' and 'Highway to Hell'.  Maybe I need to stick with Laura to get me to the end of 25 minutes.

It's official

according to Laura we are now runners!

If you had worked out a formula for how week 6 was going to pan out then if you got the following I take my hat off to you:

Run 1 - 5 minute run, 3 minute walk, 8 minute run, 3 minute walk, 5 minute run
Run 2 - 10 minute run, 3 minute walk, 10 minute run
Run 3 - 25 minute non-stop run

I am hoping that at some point my body will realise that my gasping for breath is a way of me trying to get more oxygen in, which apparently your body needs when your running!  I guess it doesn't help that the slight uphill that we have to tackle is always into the wind, and boy has it been windy this past week.  Apart from the breathing and the lead legs at around 18 minutes in then it seems to be going quite well.

I am beginning to wonder why my right foot goes numb after running for a few minutes = something to ask the physio on Thursday :-)