C25K: Week 4, Day 1

Okay, now we are talking!  This training plan just got harder.  This afternoon's training session was hard.  It wasn't "OMG, Imma Gonna Die!!!" hard, but it was more challenging and there were times that I just had to push myself to finish the segment.

I've been wondering more and more in the last few days if I am going to be able to actually run the 5K in January.  That is awfully close and I am just now getting to the tougher weeks in the training plan.  3.1 miles is a long way to run.  Can I really do that?  But yesterday I read a post at One Twenty Five and E gives a lot of great running tips.  The part that really made me know that I am going to do this 5K, able to run the whole thing or not, was this:

Walking is o.k.! In fact, it’s great!  It’s proven that if you run for 10 minutes, walk for 1, and so on, you’ll actually finish faster than someone, with the same age/stats, that runs the same distance continuously.  I can’t stress this enough; walking is not failing!! Just make sure you keep moving.  I still run 10 minutes, walk 1, and despite lots of people thinking ‘walking = fail,’ I still consider myself a ‘runner.’  10 minutes is also a bloody long time to run when you’re starting out, so start with, “run 3, walk 1” or something, and build your way up.

She's a runner y'all.  She's run real events.  And yet she still walks sometimes.  So I guess I, in my noob state, can also not view walking as a failure.

One of my many flaws is that I am a perfectionist.  I either go all out for something and do it to the letter or I don't do it at all.  Well, I am giving myself permission to not be perfect in this.  I'm not going to be, so I might as well relax and just enjoy the process of evolving from a couch potato into one of those wacky run in all kinds of weather people.  You know the nut jobs that are out there running in freezing weather while you are on the way to pick up coffee and donuts?  I want to be one of those people.

There is no playlist because the C25K app crashes if I play music while running.  I'm going to finish the program and then look into buying a Garmin and a wireless MP3 headset.  I must have music when I workout.