Good morning and happy(?) Monday. As always, I hope that whoever takes the time to read what I suspect may well turn into another lengthy blog had an amazing weekend. My weekend had a couple of highlights; volunteering at Sutton Park parkrun and finding running for 1 km without stopping relatively easy.

As the Couch to 5k training plan doesn’t seem to work well for me, I decided to follow the This Messy Happy Beginner to 5k training plan which is available along with other training plans here.

The This Messy Happy website provided the following information about the training sessions in Week 2:

The This Messy Happy Beginner to 5k training plan is awesome as it includes a variety of strength and conditioning sessions and rest days, something lacking in the Couch to 5k training plan. Links to easy to follow videos are provided for each strength and conditioning session, and the training plan also provides a link to a ‘How to stretch after exercise’ YouTube video.

Monday – 28 mins intervals (4 mins warm-up walk then 2:30 mins walk/1:30 mins run x 5 then 4 mins cool-down walk)

The second week of Beginner to 5k training didn’t get off to the most positive of starts when following a terrible night’s sleep I managed to sleep through my 5am alarm and didn’t wake until 7am. This left me with two options; complete my interval session during my lunch break or after work. Unfortunately work was far too busy for me to squeeze in a lunchtime interval session.

After some serious procrastinating, I headed out on my warm-up walk just before 9pm. It was darker than I was expecting, not helped by the fact the streetlights didn’t come on until it was dark. The combination of the lack of light and uneven pavements did have one unexpected positive, I completed my interval session at a sensible pace. Although the interval session itself felt okay, both of my calf muscles felt incredibly tight, and my trainers felt like they’d lost all their cushioning.

While I was doing my best to not make any eye contact with some of the slightly ‘interesting’ characters I encountered during my cool down walk – happily by this point the streetlights were working – I decided it was time for me to relegate the Mizuno Wave Inspire trainers I’d bought in February to walking trainers. I hoped that wearing a new pair of trainers would alleviate any issues with my calf muscles. I got back home, spent some time stretching and gave my calf muscles a massage with the Bob and Brad Q2 Mini Massage Gun I’m reviewing. My right knee felt slightly niggly, definitely something for me to keep an eye on.

Tuesday – Strength and Conditioning (Strength)

After a day that seemed to contain so many meetings it didn’t feel like I got much work done, I closed down my work laptop and powered up my personal laptop so that I could complete my strength and conditioning session. I got changed into some gym gear and spent an enjoyable(?) but what turned out to be incredibly sweaty 18 minutes doing my best to follow this  3 x 6 workout. I’m clearly not very fit at the moment as I struggled to make it to the end of the workout.

Once I’d made it to the end of the strength and conditioning workout, I lay on my exercise mat wondering how and why I’d allowed myself to get so embarrassingly unfit. I’d found the 3 x 6 workout so physically demanding, I had some doubts as to whether I’d be able to walk the following morning.

Wednesday – 28 mins intervals (4 mins warm-up walk then 2 mins walk/2 mins run x 5 then 4 mins cool-down walk)

I’ve no idea what happened, but I woke well before my 5:00am alarm. I thought about going back to sleep and completing my training session either during my lunchbreak or after work, then I reminded myself I didn’t enjoy running in the evening on Monday and I needed to go to the Post Office at lunchtime. By this point I was wideawake, so I dragged myself out of bed, got changed into some running gear and spent some time trying to wake myself up.

As my brain didn’t seem capable of making any sort of decisions, I completed my interval session on the same route I’d used on Monday. It was cool and still, perfect conditions for running and the entire session felt far more enjoyable and a lot easier. I wore my new trainers which seemed to make a huge difference as I didn’t have any issues with my knees of calf muscles which surprised a little me after my struggles with the 3 x 6 strength workout I’d completed the previous afternoon. It’s just unfortunate I’m still not very good at taking ‘action’ photos.

Seriously, how do people take such good action photos? How do people take such amazing selfies? Do you have any hints and tips? I’m not sure if the dark conditions mean that I’m destined to end up with rubbish blurry photos. I’m also paranoid I’m so busy trying to take a photo of myself I’ll end up tripping over something I’ve failed to notice. There’s also the danger of being spotted by an early morning dog walker. If that happened, I’d probably have to relocate.

Thursday – Rest

Thursday was a slightly surreal day as looking back, I don’t think I spoke to anyone all day. I didn’t have any meetings, so I was able to spend time working on my CIWEM Chartership application. I made the most of the reappearance of summer and did a lot of washing. My washing machine had a busier day than I did as I made sure I followed the training plan and did very little. I made sure I headed to bed at a sensible time because I wanted to complete my interval session early in the morning rather than after work.

Friday – 30 mins intervals (4 mins warm-up walk then 2 mins walk/2 mins run x 3, 2 mins walk/3 mins run x 2 then 4 mins cool-down walk)

I’m not sure what’s going on, but I once again woke well before my 5am alarm, so I figured I may as well get my training session done earlier than originally planned. I wanted a change of running (and walking) scenery, so I decided to head towards Mere Green. I regretted my decision when it became clear I was running into what felt like an incredibly effective wind tunnel. Please could someone explain how I ended up constantly battling with the wind, even when my route changed direction, it felt like I was running into the wind. At least the rain stayed away.

It was also humid which meant that although I found the interval session quite easy, possibly helped by the fact I managed to avoid having to run up any hills, after 30 minutes I was doing a very good impression of a beetroot.

Fortunately for me, by the time I started work I’d stopped looking red. Following a reasonably productive Friday, I was able to finish work at 3pm. Rather than sitting down doing nothing, I managed to mow the back lawn and tackle my mountain of ironing. Hopefully both of these chores count as forms of cross training. The remainder of my Friday was so mundane I won’t bore you with the details. Not for the first time I was left wondering how I used to have the energy to go out after work on a Friday.

Saturday – Strength and Conditioning (Yoga)

I was rudely woken at 6:15am by my ‘parkrun alarm’ as I was volunteering at Sutton Park parkrun. I enjoyed my four and a bit mile walk to Banners Gate as Sutton Park was so peaceful. I even remembered to take a photo of one of my favourite areas of Sutton Park, Little Bracebridge Pool.

I arrived at Banners Gate, had a quick chat with Phil who was Run Director, helped Rob collect the parkrun bikes from storage, found out where I was marshalling, collected my parkrun vest and lanyard, and waited for Ellen to arrive. I added a few more miles to my August mileage target by walking (and talking!) to my marshalling location with Ellen where we hopefully provided support and encouragement to all the parkrunners. It felt great to be back at Sutton Park parkrun after a week break.

I’m not sure walking what turned out to be over eight miles was sensible, but my knees only twinged a couple of times. I got home and was reminded that yoga isn’t one of my strengths, however, I’ll persevere because I can see the benefits of yoga. The rest of the day was relatively quiet and unfortunately didn’t feature lunch at the Giggling Squid in Mere Green, so I’ll stop talking about Saturday.

Sunday – 4 mins warm-up walk then 1km run then 4 mins cool-down walk

I was woken just before my 5:00am alarm by my stomach making it clear it wasn’t happy. Something I’d eaten had clearly disagreed with my temperamental stomach. I don’t want to go into too many details, but it took a few trips to the toilet before I felt confident to leave the house.

I’ve no idea why, but throughout my warm-up walk I was seriously doubting my ability to run 1km without stopping. My negative mindset wasn’t helped by the weather, it was humid, gloomy, and quite windy, most definitely not my favourite running conditions.

As I reached the end of the warm-up I gave myself a bit of a talking to and started to run at what felt like a sensible pace. The slow pace I set out at didn’t last long, and I found myself increasing my pace throughout the 1km run. I reached the end of the 1km run with tired legs but also feeling like I could have carried on running if I’d needed to. All things considered a positive end to the week.

I walked home, had a drink, stretched, and then headed back to bed for a couple of hours. The rest of my Sunday was productive but incredibly mundane, so I won’t bore people to tears with the details.

So, that’s the second week of the Beginner to 5k training plan successfully completed, just another four weeks to go.

Week three of the Beginner to 5k training plan looks reasonably straightforward. After finding running 1 km without stopping relatively easy, I’m hopeful I’ll be able to run 2 km without stopping on Saturday. My plan is to incorporate this training run into my walk across Sutton Park before I volunteer at parkrun on Saturday morning. Hopefully I’ll be able to find myself a nice flat route or will at least be able to avoid the more challenging Sutton Park hills. I can’t wait to get started on Week three.

Training totals

• Interval runs: 5 (out of 5)
• Time: 2 hrs 56 mins
• Distance: 13.76 miles

Distance based training runs

• 1 km: 06:08
• 2 km: TBC
• 3 km: TBC
• 4 km: TBC
• 5 km: TBC

Niggleometer

• Right knee: 3/10
• Left knee: 2/10
• Left foot: 1/10

Did you have a good weekend?

Do you have any hints and tips for taking good ‘action’ selfies?

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