Couch to 5K: Week 6, Day 1

With my new schedule of running every other day, week 6 day 1 fell on Sunday (yesterday as of this posting).  I got up at my normal time for a running day of 5:45 and prepared for what I had anticipated would be a fairly easy run. 

I arrived at the park to locked gates and light drizzle.  I had apparently arrived before the official opening time of "sunrise"...as if I could tell whether the sun had risen or not.  I parked outside the gate and walked around and began my warm up walk.  I stopped and stretched at the now familiar picnic table, enjoying the silence of a Sunday morning.  As I started my run I noticed a little stiffness in my left knee and some soreness on the inside of my right calf.  Both eased as I ran and my muscles warmed up some. 

The first 5 minutes were pretty easy and I felt myself running faster than I probably should have but I kept the pace up anyway and tried to increase it some as I reached the end of the 5 minutes.  A short 3 minute walk separated the 5 minute run from the next run which was to be 8 minutes.  I started the 8 minute run fairly slowly and tried to maintain a fairly steady pace throughout.  My legs started to fatigue somewhere in the middle of the 8 minute run but my lungs were keeping up very well.  I pushed myself a little toward the end or the 8 minutes knowing that I had a 3 minute walk to help me recover.  The final 5 minutes felt really good.  My body was tired but I knew it was just 5 minutes so I pushed myself to keep the pace up, especially towards the end.  I ran past my starting point before the 5 minutes were up so I knew I had done the second half of my run faster than my first half.  I arrived back at the car at 33:36, indicating my second half was 24 seconds faster than my first half. 

Overall, I felt good about the run.  I'm still not to the point where any of it feels easy or natural.  I'm hopeful that it's not always this hard.  I have to keep telling myself that it's a gradual process and that as long as I'm asking my body to do more and more I can expect that it's going to be hard. 

The stats:  I did 2.69 miles in 33:36 which is 12:29 per mile.  1/3 of a mile farther and 30 seconds faster per mile than my last run.  Seems odd that adding walking breaks can actually increase distance and speed, but it's true.  My average pace over the whole course of the program to this point is right at 13 minutes per mile.