Starting at the Very Start

Thursday 19th November
10km
86.56mins
8.41min/km
8.12, 8.23, 8.49, 8.37, 8.41, 8.45, 8.51, 8.13, 8.27, 8.52

Who knew I could do that!!!
Headed out planning to do 8km as a long run. Ran towards Malahide castle, got slowed down passing a school as it finished (shudda realised and avoided it at all costs!), ran around some random paths in the castle, including a lot of the Parkrun route (very wet!). Got to 5km and felt great, same at 6km.
Started thinking about maybe adding a little bit more on, to make it the longest run id done. 7km still felt good... So took a few extra turns to add some time on. Nine is nearly ten so planned another few turns. Took the headphones out somewhere after 7km, when I put them back in for a great surprise when the next time she talked said 9k when I was expecting 8! Still felt good, had promised myself I would stop if anything hurt but apart from the legs being a bit tired I was fine.
Got to 10km and was still 1.5km from home (due to missing the 8km warning!). Had vague thoughts of running the rest of it but thought that would be a recipe to hurt something.
Slow walk home with a bit of stretching on the way!
Quite the slow time, but who cares! I'm delighted with that! Really thought I didn't have 10km in me yet!

Had been planning on Parkrun on Saturday, will see how I feel tomorrow evening. This may be my one big effort of the week and if I don't feel like I'll run something I'm happy with I'll do a slow 5km on my own.
Now off to look up running watches study I mean, study! I have to stop procrastinating by running!

Wow that was horrendously long!

Thanks everyone!
Yeah I've definitely taken a lot of confidence! I had built anything over 5km to be a massive deal in my head, this morning I was thinking about aiming for a 10k race in March it's great to know I can do it! Emailed the running club in castlebar when I got in... Another big step!

Haha my legs feel like it was anything but a casual run right now! But definitely max... At the start of c25k I wudda laughed at the idea of walking 10k let alone running it!

Next step: do it again... Only faster

Interval session no 3
8x75sec 5k pace, 90 sec recovery
6.03, 5.57, 6.05, 5.49, 6.10, 5.45, 6.04, 5.55

Ended up stuck doing work stuff until 10pm, nice welcome back (or not!!). Really disappointed not to make the running group. Headed out after 10 for this one so the day wouldn't be wasted. Was freezing for most of the warm up. Even enough splits for me, probably faster than I should be, but hadn't a clue what the numbers would be like while I was running them. Felt well recovered in each 90 second gap to go again. Happy to have got something done today when going to bed would have been easier! Will definitely be at the group on Thursday! I promise!

Tuesday 24th Nov
5km
43mins
8.36min/km

Another 5km done tonight. Nice and slow as always. Late runs may be the way forward for the next while so I can try fit some study in!
Next run will be the group on Thursday

Monday 30th Nov
Interval 4
5x3mins at 10k pace, 2min recovery
Splits: 6.39, 7.15, 6.45, 7.24, 7.29

1 km warm up, 1.5 cool down. Happy enough with this, except that the splits are a bit all over the place, and maybe a bit slower than they should be. Runkeeper forgot to tell me about interval 3 being over, so ended up running fast-ish for an extra minute, with only 1 min recovery, which probably contributes to the last 2 being slower than they should
Out again on Wednesday and jingle bells on Saturday

Thanks for the advice everyone!!! Will try take it all on board... Especially starting off easy, it's a mistake I've made before. Looking forward to it now!
Good luck muppet and max and everyone else running!

Maximus Alexander wrote: »

Good luck to you too! Looks like the weather's going to be a bit of a fecker tomorrow so if we miss our targets we have a prepackaged excuse.

It's gonna make things interesting anyway! Ah sure I live on the west coast, so if there's one thing I'm used to its wind and rain!

Saturday 5th Dec
5km Jingle Bells
Official time: 38.27
Splits (runkeeper): 7.28, 7.50, 7.35, 7.19, 6.33

strange day overall! But really enjoyable!
Left home really early, got a lift from me mammy, arrived at 9.40, stayed in the heat until nearer the time! Turns out we ran down the car battery too. I headed off for the start line while she rang the aa for a jump start!
Got near the start and everyone was warming up in groups, decided not to run as I've never run a warm up before. Stretched a bit and tried to keep walking to stay warm, failed miserably on that one!
Started at the very end, only a group of 20 or so kids behind me, false start and back we went again! Finally off for real.

The race is all a bit of a blur. Started off nice and slow but still passing a few kids/walkers/slower than me people, got to 1km feeling good.
Can't remember much about the rest! Wind was terrible. Don't think it was ever behind me, more pushing to the side and against. A lot of kids were struggling to stay in a straight line! About 500 metres at 3.5km and I was putting in more effort than I ever had and getting nowhere. There wasn't anybody around to shield me from the wind but on I went!
Spotted this fat girl runs teeshirt and figured if I stayed near her I couldn't be doing too badly. In the end finished about 100m behind but used her as a pacer the whole way nearly. Felt OK-ish at 4km and thought I was flying down the hill to the finish line!

Official time was 38.27 but from why people are saying that's gun time. Forgot to stop runkeeper at the end too. So no idea what my time actually was, I'm thinking maybe a minute quicker than above, that might be optimistic thou. If I add together the runkeeper splits taking away the bit over 5km (they were matching the markers until 3kn at least) would that give an accurate-ish number?

Overall I really enjoyed it. Feel like I learnt a lot, there were times I could have pushed on, and probably was too conservative at the start. I need to get some kind of routine for a warm up! And I should have thought more about waiting at the start... I was a shivering soggy mess by the time we started after standing in only my running clothes for 30mins plus!

Just gonna have to do it all again soon to get a proper time! Will definitely be going to more races, was a great experience to run with people, even if a lot of them were 20 years younger than me!
Sorry for the epically long report!!!!
Hope everyone else is as happy as I am!

Thanks! Really happy with how it went, disappointed not to have a time I can count on but was unavoidable by the sound of it
Unfortunately on call on New Year's Eve so I'll be fast asleep in Mayo most of New Year's Day! Looks like a good one thou.
Thinking about the Christmas cracker in santry on 27th Dec, will decide after I get another park run in and see if I can keep up!