End of Couch to 5k and the start to Janathon

Well, starting Couch to 5k really hasn't helped my plan to blog more really. I was going to keep whoever can be bothered to read this blog updated with my progress.

Well, I made good progress. I finally made it to 5k on the treadmill. My next challenge was to do a parkrun - a 5k race around a local park. My first one was round Finsbury Park. Unfortunately, what I didn't realise was that I was in no way prepared for running in "real life". Running on actual tarmac is a lot harder work than on the treadmill. Plus there are these things called hills. I started off far too fast and it starts down a hill. What goes down, must go up, and I struggled to get up the other side. I started walking on the steeper bit near the half way point. Of course at that point I didn't realise that I had to go round a whole another time. Exhausted at right at the back, I had to go round again. On the second lap, I started to feel sick after eating too much breakfast and had to slow down to a walk again. I didn't know which was the turn off to come around and took a turn far too early. This meant I caught up with the end of the pack, so I waited until the back markers I recognised went past me and joined in after them. Not a great run for me all in all, but I did manage 4.7k in under 40 minutes. And learnt a valuable lesson in not eating too much before a run or taking it too fast at the start. My second attempt, a few weeks later, went a lot better, at the inaugaural Highbury Fields parkrun, and I tried really hard to run throught the whole 5k. I made it! I was the second to last but I'd run the whole distance and completed the Couch to 5k training.
So, my next challenge is to start Janathon. This involves doing some form of exercise and blogging every day, so this should increase my blogging for the next month at least!

Couch to 5k: End of Week 2, Beginning of Week 3

So when I started doing the Couch to 5k plan, I was hoping this might encourage me to post more often on this blog. But, as always, I seem to be spending far too much time actually training in my spare time to have the time to write stuff as well!
To be honest I found week 2 really hard work. It didn't help that I was feeling particularly run down and a bit dizzy during my runs - not good. But I started to feel stronger with my 90 second runs by the end of last week. Then I discovered that the London cycling group had their 'easy' ride on Sunday. Easy being 20 miles and I would bike it on my old hybrid bike that is made of steel and weighs a TON. No joke. And not easy! But I did it, just about, but it made me so nervous I hardly slept the night before.
That has been the theme of this week - bad sleep and a load of training. I finished my week 2 of Couch 2 5K on Tuesday, getting to 3K according to the running machine, so I started week 3 today. Week 3 starts you off on 3 minute runs. Yes, a lot harder work, especially when your quads are screaming gently. But I got through it, mostly with the encouragement of Laura, although I've come to associate her voice when running with slowing down, like some kind of Pavlov reaction, I wad very disappointed when she broke through two minutes through my last 3 min run and told me to keep going!

Couch to 5k

So, after several years of thinking about it, I have finally started doing the Couch to 5k. The reason why it took me so long I think was for several reasons. My main problem, given that the plan consists at the start of several 60 s runs followed by 90 s walks, how was I going to time myself? I didn't have a timer, so I thought about getting one. Secondly, how was I going to calculate how many runs I had done? I've never been the best counter. Thirdly, how was I going to fit all three runs into one week? I'm busy enough as it is!
Luckily, to my rescue came the NHS (to my amusement my phone just tried to autocorrect that to bus - I don't think the bus would help much! Hang on a sec, why am I using my phone in the first place to update this?) with their Couch to 5K podcasts - what a brilliant idea. So, the training sessions are all ready set up for you to start going. No worries about stopwatches, having to count how many runs you've done, and, as an added bonus, you have Laura (the commentator) and some ahem, groovy, tracks to push you on and tell you what to do next.
So what about the having to fit 3 runs into an all ready hectic schedule? Well, I've decided to replace my swimming (well, I can all ready swim) with a training session every week. I will also try going out at lunch times or squeezing in half an hour before pilates on Thursday. If I'm away at the weekend I guess I could try getting up a little earlier and going out before everyone else is up and awake. But the point is I don't feel like I have to squeeze it all in. So what if it takes me a bit longer, as long as I keep going up the sequence and don't get stuck, I don't have to do three runs a week, that's my aim but if I can't, then I can't.

So the first session went well I think. It was hard to guage how fast to pace the runs. I could only manage 20 minutes before pilates but I managed to finish off the last two runs afterwards. I'm not sure if this is a good idea, but at least I did it. And I'm looking forward to the next session, which will probably be on Monday.

I've even bought some new running trousers - I swore I'd never wear Lycra! And I have a new heart rate monitor to see how fast my heart's beating. So if you see a slightly mad-looking tall woman attempting to run in Central London, that'll be me...

Tall Dating - Mismatch.com

Well, last year I was going to write a second part to my dating post entitled Mismatch.com.

This is because there was a moment when I decided to try out online dating. It's not specifically directed at any particular online dating site - I mean, I could have entitled this E-Disharmony, but Mismatch.com sounded so much better!

The problem was the interesting men were few and far between. As I've described before, I'm quite specific about what kind of man I want. And trying to be specific, i.e. a man above 6'4, close to London, the results were very sporadic. There were a few nice men but none responded to my messages. Those that sent me messages were all short, and most of them were black (again, just not my type). The only taller guy that sent me a message lived in America - not exactly close to London!

But I haven't posted about this because I have started a new period of stability of my life. This is because I found a man in the real world (well, in the Tall Persons Club world). He is tall and I am happy. Apart from he lives in Northumberland.

Ah well, you can't have everything!