Good morning and happy (?) Monday. I hope that everyone who reads this masterpiece of blogging had an amazing weekend. My weekend had a couple of highlights; a successful 3- mile training run and an epic Sunday roast. I’m always easily pleased when it comes to food.

As a few people have said that they enjoy reading my training updates, I’ve decided to produce and share weekly updates of my Couch to Half Marathon training. I can’t guarantee that these updates will be interesting, but I do promise to be completely open and honest.

I shared some information as to why I’ve decided to start again as a runner in this post. After a bit of online research – okay, I spent an hour on Google – I found a 20-week training plan I thought looked achievable. After I’d rearranged some of the training sessions so that the longest runs would be on Sundays, the first week of the training plan looked like this.

As I wanted to do my best to avoid yet another running injury, all of interval sessions started and finished with a 5-minute warm-up and cool-down. Cross training sessions comprised of either a brisk 30 minute walk or a 30 minute stair session. I provided a bit more information about stair sessions here.

Monday – Rest

I apologise but I’m going to start with a slightly negative comment; what happened to summer? Waking up in darkness at 05:30 was a bit of a shock to the system, luckily, by the time I left the house at 06:00 it was reasonably light. I guess I’m going to have to get used to travelling to and from the office in darkness sooner rather than later. The walk through the underpass between Birmingham New Street and Birmingham Moor Street stations will be grim.

I had a productive day in the office and the day seemed to fly by, one minute it was 10:00, the next it was 15:00 and almost time for me to start the journey home. My plans for a productive evening kind of failed as I felt so shattered when I got home – I’m blaming the medication I’m taking for the Lyme Disease – I headed to bed for a quick nap. I woke up three hours later feeling completely disorientated and hungry, not a great combination. I’m not sure fish and chips was the healthiest option, but it was too late to cook from scratch. 

Tuesday – 30 mins intervals (Run 1 min/Walk 2 mins x 10)

Tuesday was what I would describe as a mixed day. The day got off to a positive start as I was working from home. This meant that I could have a bit of a lie-in and didn’t have to spend over an hour on public transport. I had originally planned on getting my interval session done in the morning. A completely lifeless Garmin – top tip, always check your Garmin is charged – meant that I had to delay my run until the evening. Work was incredibly challenging. Do you ever have days when you feel completely unsupported and not capable of doing your job? I received a couple of emails which left me doubting my hydrology experience and ability, it wasn’t a great feeling.

My day improved when I finished work and realised it was raining. I’m aware that this is going to sound a little strange, but I love running in the rain. Unfortunately, by the time I’d finished procrastinating it had stopped raining and I found myself completing a humid 5-minute walk in quite humid conditions. Walk completed, I switched my Garmin to interval mode and started to run for the first time for several weeks.

If you’ve ever had a running injury, you’ll know just how scary those first few minutes of running can be after coming back from injury. I kept imagining niggles that didn’t exist and was sure my right knee was going to implode. My right knee didn’t implode and once I’d stopped worrying about bits of me dropping off, I enjoyed the interval session. The only slight negative was self-inflicted, I’d turned all the alerts off on my Garmin so had to spend a lot of time staring at my left wrist.

Wednesday – 30 mins cross training

I was a little reluctant to get out of bed when my alarm woke me on Wednesday morning. Would I be able to walk? Would my right knee hurt? Luckily, my walk down the stairs to make myself a morning cup of tea was completely pain free. The positive start to the day continued when I managed to dodge a couple of rain showers and a train delay meant that I was able to grab myself some breakfast from the Centenary Lounge located inside Birmingham Moor Street. 

I had a productive day in the office and the day seemed to fly by again. Following a slightly delayed train journey to Four Oaks, I arrived home an hour after leaving the office. Not bad for a commute involving two trains and a ten-minute walk at each end. I allowed myself a quick nap before I attempted my first 30-minute stair session for quite some time.

I’m not saying that I’m incredibly unfit at the moment (well actually, I am!) but I had to have a rest after only 10 minutes of walking up and down the stairs at home, and I called it a day after 25 minutes. And to think I used to be able to spend an hour on the stair climber at the gym. It will be interesting to see if I find these sessions easier as my fitness improves.

Thursday – 30 mins intervals (Run 1 min/Walk 2 mins x 10)

I thought about completing my interval session before work but decided the extra hour in bed would be more beneficial. Work was work, I’m not sure there’s much else I can say. The office was quiet because most people went on a site visit. I, unfortunately, wasn’t invited, so I have no idea where they went. I think it’s safe to say I’m still being made to feel like a bit of an outsider. If it doesn’t improve soon, I’m going to ask to transfer to a different office. Life is too short to spend 37 hours a week feeling isolated. Enough moaning, sorry!

I got back home and prepared and cooked one of my favourite recipes, this Italian oven-baked penne. Eating early meant that I had a couple of hours to catch up on some chores and blogmin before heading out for my interval session. The actual interval session was a great success as having my Garmin set up correctly made my life a lot easier. I felt slightly concerned about running in the dark, not because of potential hecklers, but because the pavements in Four Oaks are so uneven I’m always a little concerned I’ll fall over. My calf muscles felt a little ‘tight’ to start with but that quickly went away. I found the training session a lot easier than I did earlier in the week, probably because running in the dark made me slow down.

Friday – Rest

I’m aware that this weekly update is in danger of turning into an essay so I’ll keep the details of Friday short and to the point. I worked from home so once I’d shutdown my work laptop, I was able to spend some time relaxing and doing nothing. I then made a good start on my weekend ‘things to do’ list and picked out some recipes from The Runner’s Cookbook to attempt to make. I’m not the best at cooking, so I tend to avoid anything that looks too complicated. I decided to make a start with a relatively straightforward looking spaghetti Bolognese recipe.

Saturday – 30 mins cross training

I woke up feeling quite excited as I was trying out another new to me parkrun volunteering role; volunteer coordinator. I was also on barcode scanning duty so I made sure that my phone was fully charged before I left the house. Well that was the plan. The reality was a little different. I managed to convince my friend to give me a lift to Banners Gate. I thought it was a little strange that the Banners Gate entrance to the park was locked, but just assumed it be unlocked by one of the park rangers at 08:00.  The gate unfortunately remained locked and the event director made the difficult decision to cancel the event. After spending a bit of time informing people who looked like runners parkrun had been cancelled, my morning improved with a slice of cake and two cups of tea.

After Wednesday’s not so successful stair session, I decided to head out for a brisk(ish) 30-minute walk. I figured that this would be better than nothing and I didn’t want to risk upsetting my right knee. Although the walk went well, I found myself watching yoga for runners videos on YouTube when I got home. I also spent a bit of time looking at exercise bikes and may have made a slightly impulsive purchase. Anything to avoid star sessions!

Sunday – 3 miles (Run 1 min/Walk 2 mins)

My Sunday interval session caused me a bit of an early morning conundrum. I worked out that my Garmin could either measure intervals in time or distance, not a combination of the two. I decided to wear two Garmins; one was set to measure time and distance and the other I was in interval mode. I may have looked a little strange wearing two running watches but to be honest I didn’t care.

Have I mentioned before how much I love running when it’s cool outside? It was so chilly my so-called 5-minute warm-up actually left me feeling colder than when I left the house. The interval session highlighted a few things; I need a more blingy Garmin, I’m incredibly unfit at the moment, and I’m still useless at pacing myself.

The rest of my Sunday featured a spot of home cooked Sunday lunch, a sunny gardening session, some food preparation, some dull but slightly overdue what I call adulting tasks and some housework. I hope you’ve made it to the end of my training update, I promise that the next one won’t be this lengthy!

From what I can see, next week’s training schedule looks pretty much identical to Week 1. The only difference I can see is on Thursday, when the duration of each running interval increases from one to two minutes. It all looks achievable, I just need to ensure that I actually complete each training session.

Training totals

• Runs: 3
• Time: 1 hr 36 mins
• Distance: 7.62 miles

Niggleometer

• Right knee: 2/10
• Right foot: 2/10

Has your local parkrun ever been cancelled for an unusual reason? I must admit I never thought the Park wardens would fail to unlock the gates to the Park. I’ve contacted the Council to find out if there was a reason but doubt I’ll get a response.

Do you know of any running watches that can cope with a mixture of time and distance? I’ve checked out the training plan. All of the Sunday runs are distance based but with time based intervals.

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