Saturday 1 September 2012

It’s been a long time since the last blog

It has been 2 months since the last time I blogged, my life has changed since the last blog. I have had the redundancy confirmed and my last day was 31-Jul-2012. There are IT jobs about but not the type of job I can apply generally, there has only been a couple that I could apply for.

During this time I have been mainly doing 5k runs on the treadmill, this has been very difficult due to the heat in the room. I have had all the windows open and a fan blowing air around, but it has been just too hot resulting in me feeling a bit faint at times after the run. I have managed to do a 4 mile run when the temperature was a bit lower but that has been the furthest I have run in the last couple of months.

For the last couple of weeks I have been doing a 3.5 mile walk around the block in the evening with my partner, these have been fairly slow going which has taken just slightly over the hour to complete. I few nights ago I did the same circuit on my own and completed in 45 minutes, which for a walk was as fast as I could possibly go.

I plucked up the courage last night to try a run. The last time I ran outside was ages ago and couldn’t even run a mile without stopping and I ran too quickly. Last night I got ready and set my Garmin for a 3 mile run, now I am fully expecting to stop for a walk on a number of occasions during this run, but the main thing was to run at a steady 6 mph (same speed I run at on the treadmill) to see how I get on.

I started off and run out the estate and on to a path that ran alongside a main road. I kept checking the Garmin for the speed and before I knew it I had completed a mile, I carried on running and concentrated on the speed and my breathing.

The second mile came along and I found I was getting a bit out of breath, but this was a record for me I had never run 2 miles outside before non-stop. I decided to carry on and see if I could complete the 3 miles that I had set on the Garmin. I was finding it fairly difficult at this point as there was a bit of up hill running which I am not used to doing, this did tire me out but I still carried on.

When the Garmin beeped and buzzed I had a sense of relief that the run was over but an over whelming sense of achievement that I had completed at 3 mile run without stopping. The next stage for me is to do this same run a few more times before even thinking of extending the mileage or running faster.

Garmin Connect – Walk around the block with my partner

Garmin Connect – Walk around the block on my own

Garmin Connect – Run around the block (3 miles)