u/Gwythinn

Forgot to post my W1D2, pre-C25K and W1D1 are here.

Hard run today, when I was expecting easier than last time since it's my third time doing the W1 run. But the weather was warmer (not crazy hot, but I am very sensitive to high temperatures) and I forgot to do my toe raises and calf raises before the run, and I FELT it in my shins. That's my limiting factor, not my (admittedly poor) cardiovascular health. But I finished, W1 is officially complete.

I was debating whether to step up to W2 on my next run or keep repeating the W1 run until it feels more "baseline" and less of a struggle. If today's run had been easier than W1D2 as expected, I would have stepped up, but with it being the most painful of the three W1 runs, I'm gonna do this same run at least one more time, with the proper preparation (and with any luck in cooler temperatures, although the forecast makes that look unlikely), so look for W1D4 later this week.

On a side note, my weight and body fat % are creeping downward since I started running (exactly one month ago today), so even if I don't progress from W1 to W2, I do feel like I'm progressing.

I recently restarted C25K after over a decade away. I'm about 15 lbs heavier now than I was then, and I was EXTREMELY sedentary for a few years after COVID started and I was WFH full-time.

When I came back to C25K a few weeks ago, I failed day 1 by a wide margin (I could only do three of the eight 60-second running intervals), but I reframed it as a calibration run. I thought it was day 1 but it wasn't -- it was level-setting where I was starting from.

I took those three minutes and used them as a base to start a Zero-to-Couch program for myself. (If "couch" means being able to run eight minutes out of 30, then clearly the couch is my first goal...) I figured if I split those minutes into 30 second running intervals with two minutes of walking in between (keeping the 2m 30s "blocks" from C25K), I could probably manage eight of them. Then I set a goal of working up to W1D1. So I did 30s/2m, and it was hard, but doable (my shins were angry, but they didn't refuse to comply). Then each time I ran I took 5s off of the walking intervals and added it to the running intervals:

4/18: Three rounds of 1m run/1m 30s walk, then walked the rest (3/8 of W1D1)
4/24: 30s/2m
4/27: 35s/1m 55s
4/30: 40s/1m 50s
5/2: 45s/1m 45s
5/7: 50s/1m 40s
5/9: 55s/1m 35s

So it was a pretty smooth and gradual increase over a few weeks' time.

Today was 1m/1m30s, back to C25K W1D1. It was hard, but doable in a way that it wasn't a few weeks ago. My shins and soles are wrecked, and for the first time since I started I'm feeling it in the rest of my legs too (although I suspect the strength routine I did yesterday has more to do with that than the run). I guess I'm back on the horse now, but I'm thinking about maybe doing W1 twice to acclimate before proceeding.

5/12: 1m/1m 30s (W1D1)