As always, I hope that whoever takes the time to read my latest training and life update had an amazing weekend. My weekend had a couple of highlights; watching the US Olympic Marathon team trials and watching Wolves beat Tottenham. After seeing more and more sporting events getting cancelled, I just hope that the Tokyo Olympics take place.

Week four of my Couch to 5k training plan looked like this.

In an attempt to warm-up, each interval session started with a five-minute walk. In what felt like an attempt to give myself hypothermia, each interval session also ended with a five-minute walk. As I’m yet to fall in love with my exercise bike, I switched one cross training session for a 30-minute power walk. So, how did I get on during week four of my Couch to 5k training?

Monday – 30 mins cross training

Thanks to some train-related issues, I ended up working from home. I’m not looking forward to my temporary contract coming to an end as I love having the option of working from home. After a morning of responding to hydrology queries, I power walked to and from the local Post Office to drop off a parcel and to pick up some lunch. I decided that walking counts as a form of cross training. Anything to avoid spending half an hour on my exercise bike!

Looking back, I can’t actually remember much about Monday. As one of my running goals this year is to complete my 50th parkrun and because I’ve missed volunteering, I emailed Beacon parkrun offering to help out as a tail walker.

Tuesday – 32 mins intervals (Run 5 mins/Walk 3 mins x 4)

Although I managed to avoid having a post-work nap and I went to bed at a sensible time, I struggled to get to sleep and spent several hours thinking about all of my failures as an adult. I mean who doesn’t enjoy over analysing their life in great detail at 2am? This meant that I felt like a grumpy zombie when my alarm went off at 5:30am. Work was difficult, fortunately, most of my day was taken up with non-technical meetings that didn’t involve too much brainpower.

I got home at 4:30pm and headed straight to bed for a much-needed nap. I have no idea what happened to the rest of the evening but I didn’t head out on my 5-minute warm-up walk until almost 8pm. It was freezing and I felt colder at the end of the so-called warm-up!

My interval session on Tuesday could only be described as shite. The five-minute running intervals felt more challenging than I thought they would.  To make matters worse, during one of the three-minute recovery walks I was called a “fat c**t” by some lads who were parked up in a car smoking weed. I think it’s safe to say the camera doesn’t lie and I didn’t enjoy running in the sleety conditions.

Wednesday – Rest

Except for my mile walk to and from work, I had a restful rest day. I think the highlight of my Wednesday was my amazing lunch and the lowest point was realising I’d left my end of year paperwork in the office when I got home.

Thursday – 21 mins intervals (Run 5 mins/Walk 2 mins x 3)

Thursday was a long and tiring day as I travelled to and from Bristol for my end of year review with my line manager. I left the house in a snowstorm at 6:00am and didn’t get home until 6:30pm. The Bristol office is located close to College Green; let’s just say I was pleased my review took place on Thursday and not Friday! I’m not sure I could work in Bristol but I may not have a choice.

I felt so hungry when I got home I considered postponing my interval session for 24 hours. Once I realised I only had to complete three intervals, I managed to convince myself to head outside. The interval session was hard, probably because I hadn’t eaten anything since lunch. Let’s just say I ‘cheated’ slightly as I made sure that my route avoided hills and ended with an enjoyable downhill section.

Friday – Rest

Did it ever stop raining on Friday? Due to the course being waterlogged, Beacon parkrun was cancelled for the third week in a row. I was a little disappointed as I’d been looking forward to volunteering again and to spending some time in Lichfield. Fingers crossed the weather is a little more parkrun-friendly next weekend. As this post is getting a tad lengthy and as my Friday could only be described as dull, I won’t bore you all to tears with the details.

Saturday – 30 mins cross training

My weekend got off to a bit of a negative start when I discovered that my weight was exactly the same as the previous week. A reminder that it’s impossible to outrun a bad diet and just the kick up the arse I needed to complete my 30-minute exercise bike session. Exercise bike session done and dusted, I had a productive morning and completed some rather dull life admin related chores. As one of my main aims this year is to save at least £1500 each month, I set myself some side hustle targets for March.

I think the highlight of what turned out to be a chilled out Saturday evening was being able to watch the US Olympic Marathon trials. It’s just a shame that 80 per cent of the NBC coverage comprised of irritating American adverts and a male commentary team that managed to make the BBC Athletics look world-class. I wanted Des Linden to qualify for Tokyo but she agonisingly finished in fourth place. I had never heard of two of the top three female finishers, I guess that’s why I love the marathon; it’s hard to predict who will run well on the day.

Sunday – 40 mins intervals (Run 5 mins/Walk 3 mins x 5) Rest

In an ideal, injury-free world, yesterday, I would have completed the Vitality Big Half. Unfortunately, I don’t live in an ideal world and I accepted that the Vitality Big Half would be a DNS several months ago. I did briefly consider spending the weekend in London but decided travelling back up to Birmingham with thousands of drunk and disappointed Aston Villa fans wouldn’t be much fun.

Thanks to a totally unexpected early morning migraine, I decided to postpone my interval session and went back to sleep. When I woke a second time, my head felt slightly better and I was able to watch England beat West Indies in the Women’s T20 World Cup, a win which meant they qualified for the semi finals. Following a spot of lunch which make me feel slightly nauseous, I managed to watch most of the Wolves match before my migraine made an unwelcome reappearance and I had to get away from the TV.

So that’s week four of my Couch to 5k training plan not exactly completed. I can’t believe that I’ve now completed 50 per cent of my training plan.

Week 5 of my Couch to 5k training plan looks quite challenging and I’m not convinced I’ll be able to complete all of the training sessions. The duration of the running intervals increases from five to eight minutes. I think it will be interesting to see if I manage to run for eight minutes at a time without conking out.

Training totals

• Runs: 10 (out of 12)
• Time: 4 hrs 34 mins
• Distance: 23.21 miles

Niggleometer

• Right knee: 2/10
• Left knee: 1/10
• Right foot: 1/10

Did you have a good weekend? Did you manage to complete a leap year parkrun? Did you take part in any organised events?

Do you think we should have Olympic marathon trials in the UK? I’d love to see a dedicated marathon event where the first three finishers know they have qualified for the Olympics.  

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