Couch to 5K, day four of running. This is week 2, so I had to step up to the next level. Last week I started running pretty slowly, between 5.3 and 5.5 mph. I did that because I remember I was running around 5mph last time I had a gym membership -- then I also remembered that was less than a year post-knee-surgery.

At the time my sis was running 6mph, and I thought that was a heck of a lot, way faster than I could imagine then. Mostly I was amazed that I was running at all.

But at the end of last week I decided that 5.5 was quite easy, so I did the running segments of day 3 at 6mph. It was quite do-able, and I was proud of myself and planned to stay at 6 for each subsequent running bit.

So today the running segments went from 60 seconds to 90. I did all of the walking at 3.5mph, and the running at 6mph - well for the first few that is. The first one was okay, then the 2nd and especially the 3rd ones were hard! I managed them, but I was very out of breath and tight-chested by the time the podcast told me to switch back to walking.

The next two bits I dropped down to 5.8mph, which was more tolerable. But it was sad-making, because, you know, it's not 6. Also I'm a bit ashamed that it was so hard, especially when last week felt so easy.... even though I know I increased my speed quite a bit, plus the times went up.

But I did the whole workout anyway, even if I varied the speed up a little bit, and I'm quite proud of that. Four days is not much, but heck, it's a beginning! Just gotta keep at it.

I'm hoping there will come a day a few months from now when I look back on these little progress reports and think to myself, "I had trouble running 6mph for 90 seconds?! Wow, that is so easy now!" I hope. (:

Tags: treadmill