For those intimidated by Week 5 of C25K...

TourThePast

I confess. I was utterly intimidated by Week 5. The jump from 5 mins to 20 mins running seems insurmountable. A ridiculous jump.

Because I'd had a migraine and was still feeling rough (and partially because I chickened out) I had repeated W5D1. Today, instead of W5D2, I decided to take the "Timed mile" test that my gym instructor had suggested I do to measure future progress against.

Once the treadmill was set to 1.6km, the time wasn't displayed. Because of this I didn't realise how long I'd been running for. Imagine my shock when I looked at my HRM and realised I'd been running for nearly eight minutes - most I'd ever run without stopping before that was five minutes. I thought, perhaps if I can run for eight minutes I can run for ten minutes. When I'd made it to ten minutes, I thought, maybe I can keep going for a little longer... And so on.

Anyway, the upshot of it is, In the end, I ran for A WHOLE MILE without stopping once - and because I am unfit so must run slowly and have short legs it took a ridiculous 17 minutes 32 seconds. That's almost W5D3 and I haven't even done W5D2 yet. I'm the least athletic person on the planet, with the possible exception of Stephen Hawking, but I actually did it!

My point is... It seems as if C25K really does prepare your body for the next stage - if not your mind. The jump from 5 minutes max to 20 minutes max, in four days - I'm now convinced that it's 95% psychological.

So for those who are as intimidated as I was and don't believe they're ready - just go for it, and you might shock yourself! :bigsmile: