The last three weeks of Couch to 5k were a week each of gradually increasing run times with no breaks.

week 7

Week 7 coincided with the extra long Easter/ Anzac holiday, so we got the first two runs done in Centennial Park. I had no planned pace other than ‘survive’ but RunKeeper’s audio cues were suggesting five minute kilometers were doable, but I came up 130m short on Sunday and just 40m short on Tuesday. The sub-25 minute 5k would have to wait for another time as Thursdays run was around the much hillier streets of Vaucluse.

Sundays run also coincided with a Wiener dog gathering – there must have been 15 running around! For more about the importance of the Wiener dog during training, see here.

Day three of the week saw the return of pain in my left knee, I’m not sure if its related to the hillier route or over-work but with luck it will fade again.

week 8

Week 8 calls for 28 minutes running so on Sunday was a double with an 80km road ride in the morning and the Couch 25k run in the afternoon. Again we hit Centennial and taking it easy I managed to knock out an average of 5:11/km which I was very happy with.

Days two and three were around my area of Vaucluse again; it’s much harder to pace with the hills (I climb around 100m on the run), but with the Garmin it helps me pace a little and not overcook the climbs. The runs were pretty uneventful & my knee pain seems to have settled down to slightly niggly so I can deal with that.

week 9 – finals week

Week 9 is the last of the C25k program with three 30 minute runs. Again on Sunday we picked Centennial Park for day 1, possibly an unwise move as it was approaching lunchtime on Mothers Day. It was a lovely clear day and feeling good I managed to cover over 6km in the half-hour¹.

Runs two and three were really cold (8C is arctic when you’ve been in Sydney for a couple of years), and pretty uneventful. The biggest challenge was working out a route that would get me to the right end point at the appointed time; I didn’t want to get too cold walking back to my apartment.

For the final ‘Graduation’ run, I plotted out a route I’ve not done before knowing that I would need about 5.7km to run bookended with 500m of walking.

It was pretty much a climb up from sea level to around 90m at the midway point before descending again. Not a bad route and one that will probably be added to the list.

In case you are ever thinking stopping before your interval is up, a little gem via Gym Jones:

A memorable gym conversation: “Why did you stop? You had 2 seconds left” – “What am i supposed to do with 2 seconds” – “Not fucking quit.”

Posted in Running | Tags: C25k, training | 0 Comments