Week 5 starts with a departure from the C25K script. The stipulated R5m, W3m, R6m, W3m, R5m was what I managed on Sunday, two days ago, and two days earlier than scheduled. I could have repeated it but craved some sense of making progress so I wrote my own prescription of R3m, W2m, R5m, W2m, R7m, W3m, R3m, W3m, R2m, amounting to a whopping 20 minutes of purposeful, confident, sinewy, seagull-scattering galloping down the Promenade. Or so my turbulent imagination would like to have it. The truth was less alarming and less disruptive to all creatures of the seafront, both human and avian. Apart from the ever-wary dope smokers, all remained unperturbed, even insouciant, as I briefly flickered through their lives.
Running is never easy for me but it’s growing noticeably less hard. I couldn’t have run 7 minutes non-stop, and 20 in total, a month ago. Even two weeks ago. Today I didn’t have any doubts though it was still challenging. The final 2-minute stretch was supposed to be 3 minutes but I started to feel the faintest twinge in my calf as I approached the end of the second, so decided to leave it there. And that’s the danger. Even at these modest distances, an old gimmer who hasn’t run any distance for more than ten years has to be cautious. The guideline was always not to increase mileage by more than 10% each week but although I ran only 62 minutes last week, it was more than double the previous one. I doubt if this pushes me into some red zone but the faint spasm today was my body’s polite reminder not to stick my head too far above the parapet.
My younger self is constantly sending whispered memos to this older version, reminders of wisdom he ignored last time. I’ve ignored the 10% rule thus far but can continue to do so only by adopting some of the other recommendations. Rest days for sure. At least one per week. Not running on consecutive days. And most important I think, the inclusion of cross-training on the days that fall in between. Activities that focus on other limbs and other muscle groups. When I ran in the noughties, I did very little of this. Now that I’m retired I’ve no excuses. I own a rowing machine and Ski-Erg. I now have some dumbbells and a kettlebell. Most important of all, I have the time. So I can even devote a few minutes a day to calf-raises on the stairs, though stretching remains a thoroughly tedious chore.
Today I invested in some of Marks & Spencer’s finest espadrilles to coax me onto the rowing machine. I don’t need them to row, no, but I’m applying a bit of pressure in the right place: there’s no point in wasting £35 like this. Now that I’ve bought them, I have to use them. Tomorrow.
Along with the calf twinge, anther apparition from earlier times to reappear today was that feeling of ‘Do I really want to be doing this?’ It struck as I got out of the car near the seafront and was met by a surprisingly chilly breeze. It was far colder than this four weeks ago, when I started this odyssey, but at least then I was properly togged up in multiple layers and leggings and brain-insulating woolly headgear. Today I’d nothing but a technical teeshirt, shorts, and my FC Luzern cap on my side. For a few seconds I actually considered jumping back into the warm and speeding homeward again. But rightly, I admonished my weedy chimp, or whatever it was that was pulling the strings here, and set off on my brisk 5-minute warm-up walk. That’s part of the problem. Despite the label. A warm-up walk doesn’t warm you up. In cool weather it does the opposite. But I manfully withstood the chilly 4-degree breeze until I was finally allowed to rocket off into the distance, in a burst of activity that immediately raised my spirits and my body temperature.
The session ended conveniently close to a cafe on the front so I treated myself to a BLT and a coffee. It might have been her first day in the job as the young woman behind the counter seemed a bit nonplussed by my order, despite me choosing something on the menu. She hesitantly responded with: “BLT? Um, I suppose I should be able to do that for you. I just need to find out… what’s in a BLT.” My view was that a decent enough clue to the mysterious contents was contained within its name but I kept my own counsel. Never upset someone who is about to make you a sandwich, especially when they’re off-camera. Anyway, the result was successful enough. I ate it with gusto, pleased with today’s new milestone.
