2018 Challenge No.1 - 1st Update

One week down and I'm doing OK! I confess I'm feeling slightly surprised about this as I entered into this feeling that it was quite a tall order for me - well obviously as otherwise it wouldn't be a challenge, would it now! I was wary of those days when the weather was grotty and I didn't want to get wet, or when I got home and couldn't face going out again, or arrived home a bit late and was STARVING hungry and didn't want to take the time to do any form of exercise before I ate...and sure enough I've had to tackle all those things in the week and so far I'm still on track - go me!

The first few days of the month I've mentioned in my original post about the challenge - the 1st was that run (and fall!). The 2nd was the first day back at work so I knew it would be a dodgy one - plus I had a hospital appointment at the end of the afternoon - so I planned ahead to do the intervals sets and just got on and did them when I got home - all good. Wednesday was the day of the light traffic and the long pre-work walk - while I won't often manage to get that sort of distance before coming into the office I can usually manage at least a mile - although those miles aren't counting for the purposes of this challenge.

On Wednesday I also did an hour in the gym after work - I really mix it up when I'm there - I only go once a week and so try to get as much value from it as possible - so I mix up the treadmill (running and intervals with an incline/sprint intervals), some mat-work (basically the same sort of stuff I sometimes do at home but usually a single set and often the stuff that's more comfortable to do with mats rather than thin carpet underneath me) and the weights machines. I have a rough programme but it is only quite rough - I vary it depending on which machines are available so it doesn't have any kind of set rotation to it. It took SO much nerve for me to get back to the gym - it was something I always enjoyed years ago but I guess I'd just got out of that "gym mindset" and had slipped into thinking that I'm not that sort of person...thankfully I found the nice, friendly little gym at the community sports centre near to work, and that suits me brilliantly! They offer a community rate to those living and working locally so I can simply turn up, pay £7 and off I go. Because I go straight from work it cuts out that thing of getting home and not wanting to go out again, which in real terms means I do it rather than talking about it, then deciding the sofa is more comfortable.

Thursday I knew I needed a lower impact day - my joints were painful and achey - not unusual in itself but this was worse than usual and I knew if I was going to keep up through the week I had to factor in a more gentle on myself day - so I made the effort to walk a couple of miles before work (in the rain, no less!) and another couple after work. And then I told myself - "that's enough for today" - ands therein lies ANOTHER issue with goals and targets and challenges - it's too easy to fall into that trap of feeling that you constantly have to be at 100% on it - you don't, it's absolutely fine to mix up a few 50% days in there, to remind yourself that actually, you're achieved what you set out to do, you don't always have to feel you're over-achieved. Sometimes enough is, well, enough.

Friday I'd always planned to do another C25K run - I knew I had the option to get week 7 ticked off inside that first week of the year so I went for it. I'm now at the running for 25 minutes straight stage - not anything I ever thought I'd manage, and something I've learned is that the first 5 minutes or so is ALWAYS hard work - you think your breathing is never going to last out, that you're incredibly slow, you feel every twinge and hurty bit. After that first little stretch though comes the sudden realisation - how far you've run already in that time; that suddenly you're able to breathe more easily; that the bits that were hurting, the knees that you were afraid at the start were going to collapse on you, actually now feel OK; and that you've found your rhythm, and that you can now run mostly on autopilot, without having to think too hard about it. Once you reach that stage you also start to understand something - that if you can keep going for that time, you can keep going for longer. The first time I really "got" all that was the run at the end of week 5 of the C25K programme - the one I'd kept looking at and thinking "No WAY!" about - a solid 20 minutes of running when prior to that the most I'd done in one go was less than half that. The final minute of that run was INCREDIBLY hard work, until I realised that the final minute I was then running - that was the self-same 60 seconds I couldn't manage when I started - and now I was doing it after running another 19 minutes!

Saturday - a walk into town and back again (brisk pace - 2 miles each way)  and then some HIIT intervals in the afternoon - mostly focused on core stuff and leaving legs pretty much alone again to give myself a lower impact day. And finally yesterday and the third Week 7 C25K run - and boy oh BOY did I not want to go out in the cold and do that one! I started thinking of possible "reasons" (yep - excuses, you've got it!)  for not doing it the night before, finally managed to force myself out a good 45 minutes after I'd planned, then spent the first mile convincing myself why I should just go home again... Of course I didn't, I sucked it up, carried on, made myself do an extra couple of minutes at the end as I'd been pathetic and slow at the beginning (I hadn't as it turned out!) and ended up running 2.7 miles at sub-10 minute mile pace.

This week will be pretty much a mix up of the same again. I want to get a short run in there somewhere I think - probably just a round-the-block mile to remind myself it doesn't always have to be further - the whole point of running in the first place was that it would give me a reasonably quick route to exercise and now I'm in a position where I can really start making use of that convenience. I'm hoping to get another 2 C25K days run - I'm incredibly keep to get the programme done and ticked off now and actually I'm starting to think that I might even be able to make that final run of the programme a Parkrun - which would be quite exciting! The gym will feature again, and some more HIIT stuff probably mostly focused on core & upper body. My FitBit tells me that in the course of last week I covered 47 miles between walking and running so it would be really nice to see if I can get anywhere near that again.  It's funny but at the moment it rather feels as though one challenge is sort of naturally leading me in to another which is interesting for me - I've even started looking into possible 5k races to enter - mad!

If you've sent yourself a challenge or several for 2018 how are you getting on so far?

Robyn