Good morning and happy Monday. What happened to the weekend? I hope that whoever takes the time to read what I suspect will turn into a strange combination of exercise bike, interval run, and life-related ramblings, had an amazing weekend. My weekend had one highlight; volunteering at the Birmingham Running Festival in Sutton Park. Catching up with some of the local parkrun community made the early start worthwhile.

It’s been almost a year since I last attempted to complete the Couch to 5k. If you’re new to this blog, I completed the penultimate interval run of the final week of the Couch to 5k, turned a knee niggle into a knee injury, and spent the majority of the next 12 months injured and unable to run. After a couple of false starts, last week I decided that it was a case of now or never, so here I am.

Once again, I’ve decided to produce weekly updates as people have said that they really enjoy reading my training (and life) updates. On a more selfish note, I know that based on previous experience, writing these weekly updates will help to motivate me and to get me out of the door. As always, I can’t guarantee that these updates will be interesting or that they will contain eye-catching photos, but I promise to be completely open and honest and to share the highs and lows.

I decided to start again with the Couch to 5k training plan that is available on the NHS Live Well website. The Couch to 5k training plan I followed last year was spread over seven weeks, the version I’m following this time is spread over nine weeks.

The Couch to 5k website provided the following information about the runs in Week 1:

Like last time, I supplemented the three Couch to 5k interval sessions with two cross training sessions and two rest days. Each interval session started with a 5-minute warm-up and 5-minute cool down. Cross training sessions comprised of low intensity 30 minute training sessions on my exercise bike. Most importantly, I placed a lot of importance on strength and conditioning.

Monday – 30 mins cross training

When I started sharing weekly Couch to 5k updates a year ago, I was struggling to get to grips with working from home. Fast forward 12 months and I’m still working from home and it’s likely I’ll be working from home for the remainder of 2021. A year ago, I had concerns about my fixed-term contract and finding a new job. Fast forward 12 months and I have a new permanent job. I still feel isolated quite a lot of the time but my new team are amazing and are incredibly supportive.

Apologies for the random waffle! After spending most of the day reading drought related reports – always fun when it’s raining – I closed down my work laptop, got changed and got straight on my exercise bike.

I’m yet to upgrade my exercise bike so in order to make the 30 minutes slightly more interesting, I tend to watch Bike the World videos on YouTube. On Monday I got to ‘cycle’ towards Milford Sound in New Zealand.

I found the 30 minutes difficult and was doing a great impression of a beetroot when I got off my exercise bike. I realised it was over a week since I’d last done any exercise as my first Covid vaccine had left me with very little energy and an elevated resting heart rate. I must admit that this cross training session left me questioning my ability to complete even the shortest of runs.

All things considered, the remainder of my Monday was productive. I arranged to volunteer at the Birmingham Running Festival which took place in Sutton Park yesterday. I responded to some blog related admin and made a start on a product review. And finally, as I didn’t want to spend the majority of the time staring at my left wrist, I uploaded the first Couch to 5k interval session onto my Garmin.

Tuesday – 20 mins intervals (run 60 secs/walk 90 secs x 8)

12 months ago, when I attempted the first interval session of the Couch to 5k, my main concern was bumping into other people. Last Tuesday, I had three concerns; my left knee, bumping into other people, and my lack of fitness. My left knee felt fine throughout the 20 minutes. I’ve been warned that it will never be 100% pain free, however, on Tuesday my left knee felt great. By running at 5:30am it was so quiet I was able to run in the road, and I found running for 60 seconds quite easy.

After completing my 5 minute cool down walk, I took some terrible photos, walked home, stretched, had a drink, shared my post run thoughts on Instagram, and lay on my bed feeling slightly overwhelmed. I felt even more overwhelmed when I saw all the lovely comments on my post.

I started work at 7am and spent most of the day in meetings. I’m not sure if it’s just me, but I don’t feel like I get much done when I have a lot of meetings. Having to stare at my iPhone screen – Teams doesn’t work on my laptop – for five hours left me feeling like I needed to give my eyes a break. I finished work at 4:30pm and headed straight to bed for a quick nap. The nap seemed to recharge my batteries as the rest of my evening was productive.

Wednesday – Rest

Some things never change. As this weekly update is already turning into one of my essays, I’ll keep my Wednesday update short. Work was a little stressful and I finished much later than planned, I sold a couple of items on Facebook, I did another two loads of washing, and I spent an hour reading Running in the Midpack.

Thursday – 20 mins intervals (run 60 secs/walk 90 secs x 8)

I woke before 5am and decided to complete the second interval session slightly earlier than originally planned. I was amazed to see several dog walkers and a fair amount of traffic; it actually felt busier at 5am than it did at 6am on Tuesday. I can only assume that a lot of people don’t have the option of working from home. Anyway, back to the 20 minute interval session. After three sensibly paced run intervals, I started to speed up when I spotted a dog walker. Talk about being stupid after spending such a long time not running due to a knee injury.

My left knee niggled a couple of times during the final 90 second walk but felt fine during the 5 minute cool down walk. When I got home, I posted a quick update on Instagram and then spent 30 minutes working through my strength and conditioning exercises. Most people would have probably headed back to bed for an hour. I didn’t feel tired so I decided to start work at 6am.

After a productive morning, I found the afternoon a struggle as I felt quite tired after only getting 5 hours’ sleep. I don’t think spending hours staring at my laptop screen helped. Once again, I finished work at 4:30pm and treated myself to a quick power nap. I had a reasonably productive evening and listed and sold a pair of calf sleeves and arm warmers on Facebook. I’d been meaning to sell my unwanted running gear for ages so it felt good to make a couple of sales.

Friday – Rest

I think the main highlight of Friday was having a quick FaceTime with a couple of my ex-colleagues from Wallingford. Once we’ve all had our second vaccines, I’m hoping to spend a few days down in Wallingford. I’m going to sound incredibly selfish, but I’ll be devastated if the new variant disrupts the planned easing of lockdown in June.

Saturday – 30 mins cross training

Although I didn’t continue my virtual cycle ride towards Milford Sound in New Zealand on Saturday morning, I did spend several hours cleaning my house from top to bottom. I’m hoping that housework counts as a form of cross training. My Fitbit definitely seemed to think that I’d completed a workout!

The rest of my Saturday was so mundane I won’t bore you all to tears with the details. I think it’s safe to say that I can’t wait for parkrun to restart and that I’m looking forward to my local Bistrot Pierre fully reopening.

Sunday – 20 mins intervals (run 60 secs/walk 90 secs x 8)

Once again, I woke before my alarm and decided to complete my interval session slightly earlier than planned. I also decided to change my route and to run past the local Nature Reserve. Have you ever pretty much instantly regretted your decision making? I got chased by some rather aggressive geese as I ran past the Nature Reserve, and it felt like every 60 second run interval coincided with a hill. I also committed the basic error of miscounting how many intervals I’d completed. Still, it was a beautiful morning and my left knee didn’t grumble too much.

At 7am, I left the house for a second time and walked across Sutton Park to the location of the start of the Birmingham Running Festival. Sutton Park looked stunning and I as I’d done my usual trick of completely overestimating how long it would take me to walk a couple of miles, I stopped to take a few photos. I’ve never seen swans move so fast, one minute they were at the far side of the pool, the next they were getting out of the pool looking for bread.

I loved volunteering at the Birmingham Running Festival and I think the event was a success. For a few hours, it felt like life had returned to something resembling normality. I was given a strange selection of tasks which included, stocking up the portaloos with loo roll (they were all very well stocked so I’ve no idea why I was asked to do this), making sure runners were socially distanced in the start area, handing out medals to the male and female winners of the half marathon, 10k and 5k events (slightly confusing given the different start times and having three events running at once), and helping to tidy up at the end. The medals were epic; I hope I’m able to earn myself a medal next year.

The highlight of the morning was getting to catch up with quite a few people from Sutton Park parkrun. I just hope that parkrun is able to return soon. At the moment, it’s not looking positive. I’m waffling on again and I need to order my weekly Chinese takeaway treat, so I’ll end this weekly update here.

Week two of the Couch to 5k training plan looks reasonably straightforward, I’m confident I’ll be able to run for 90 seconds at a time. I just need to remember to be sensible and to run at a pace that I can maintain.

Training totals

• Runs: 3 (out of 3)
• Time: 1 hr 0 mins
• Distance: 4.74 miles

Niggleometer

• Right knee: 2/10
• Left knee: 3/10
• Right foot: 2/10

Did you have a good weekend? Did you do anything exciting? Did you take part in an organised event?

 When do you think parkrun will return? I don’t think parkrun will return on June 5^th but I’d love it to return a few weeks later.

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