Gone in 60 Seconds

Mini Goal #1 – Complete the 3 week 1 runs on the scheduled days (Friday, Sunday, Tuesday)

Week one of the C25K programme is simple:  

•  Walk for 5 minutes
•  Run for 1 minute (x8 times) with a 1½ minute walk in between
•  Walk for 5 minutes

This proved to be very achievable.  On the first run I started with a pace of 8.0 km/h for the run and increased it by 0.1 on each of the runs.  No problems there.  For the second run I started on 8.0 and increased it 0.2 each interval finishing on a speed of 9.4 km/h for the last interval.  No problems there either.  On the third run of Week One I peaked at 9.6 km/h.  The old knees started to stiffen after the 3^rd run and were beginning to ache.  This was a warning sign (or if you are a PRINCE2 certified project manager a 'signpost of danger').  I needed to adjust my strategy of ever increasing the pace.

I did a bit of reading and one suggestion was to make the walks in between the run intervals less brisk.  The theory here is that a leisurely walk reduces the stress and gives the bits a pieces in your legs a chance to recover in between the intervals, stopping them from tiring or becoming exhausted.  Exhusted leg muscles give less support and put more strain on the tendons/ligaments.  Ok that makes sense.  So rather than belting along at 5.5km/h during the walking phases (which feels like a vigourous walk to my 5'8" frame) I reduced to 5.2 km/h.  This small reduction turned out to be enough to make it a comfortable pace.

I had also been taking longer strides as I was increasing the pace.  This was a natural response to the treadmill moving faster.  As the pace increased I would stride out more to keep up.  My reading revealed however, that this too increases the strain on your knees and that the way to increase pace without compromising your knee health is to increase the tempo of your strides but keep them short.  This reduces the impact and stretching strain on your muscles and other bits and pieces.  Ok, that made sense too.  I had a plan for the next few runs.

But the important thing was that I had completed Week 1 of the programme, on the days I said I would.

Mini Goal #1 – Achieved!