My Couch to 5K journey
Nine weeks of 'training', my first Parkrun, and my 7 top run tips if you fancy the challenge yourself... perfect for Spring?!
I get emotional watching athletics on television; other people’s children competing in the egg and spoon; even seeing someone run for a bus — I have to know that they make it! — these things bring tears to my eyes. I rationalise it as being something about the struggle, the drive to finish, the push to succeed. It resonates with something deep inside of me to the extent that I always wear sunglasses on small’s Sports Day to hide my streaming eyes. It’s embarrassing to be honest.
I used to do a lot of athletics as a child. Track first (800m was my sweet spot) and then Cross Country. From the age of about 11, I represented my school/county in several events. Then I caught pneumonia, missed a year, and never went back.
Thus I got to wondering/introspecting if my extreme emotionality around athletics might be some sort of unfinished business thing going on? Perhaps I just needed to run again? Not competitively, but for myself — to remember my small self and respect her loss? I’d been good. I could have been a contender and all that!
I also didn’t want to become the mum who pushes their child to achieve the glory they missed out on. Not-so-small started at an athletics club about a year ago and he religiously does the Junior Parkrun. He’s got the bug all by himself, and is improving rapidly. So, if I was expecting him to run in the cold every Wednesday and Sunday, I felt I ought to be prepared to do it too. And so it began.
Couch to 5K: the app
I first did the NHS-guided C25K programme in May 2022. But back then, as soon as I’d finished, I archived the app and decided I preferred to walk (I wrote about it in Let’s talk about potential, see below).
But 18 months on, the picture looks a little different. I walk the hound in the morning but thanks to mostly working from home, I realised I could fit a 30 minute run into the hour before the afternoon school run (although this will have to change once we get into the summer as it’ll be too hot). Or I could run when not-so-small himself is training (beats freezing on the bleachers watching him warm up!) I had my time slot, and no more excuses…
I started the app again from the beginning because I wanted to re-instil running as a habit. This is how it went… Ps the idea is three runs/week (so I did Monday/Wednesday/Friday wherever possible), and every ‘run’ starts and finishes with a brisk 5-minute warm-up walk…
Week One
Easy jogs of 60 seconds interspersed with 90 seconds of walking for 20 minutes in total. For the first one I even took the hound! He was too shocked to protest and gamely up-ambled his pace every minute and a half. I wore way too many layers including a thick wool jumper and felt very amateur. Even the single minute jogs felt like plenty. Especially when I picked a bad up hill route.
Week Two
The pace ups a little to 90 seconds of running alternated with 2 minutes of walking for 20 minutes in total, so I relinquished the jumper and wore a huge hoody over a base layer, vest top and t-shirt. Gloves too. I can’t bear to be cold. Like, not even going to step out the door type can’t bear it, regardless of people saying oh you’ll soon warm up once you start running. Not if I strain a frozen muscle reply I.
Week Three
Already it gets a touch more complicated: 2 repetitions of the following… 90 seconds running, 90 seconds walking, 3 mins running, 3 mins walking. I was still in my comfort zone, albeit feeling very gently pushed. I choose Jo Whiley as my narrator, and her soothing words of encouragement really help. Other options include Sarah Millican, Sanjeev Kohli and even Steve Cram!