Running Project: 5k Training Programme Week 9 Results

When routine becomes routine, thundering through the change curve and learning about plogging (picking litter while jogging).

This bench is conveniently placed at exactly 2km from my starting point.

Week 9 was a good week, three outings at 7.19km (got excited and then lost), 4.06km and 4.03km, with an hour's strength training on Wednesday. Monday's 7.19km was easily accomplished, on Wednesday, I clipped a minute off each kilometre and Friday ... well, Friday was about consistency and discovering when a routine has become routine.

I had a long day in London on Thursday, catching the early train and staying late for an evening meeting. Friday I didn't have anything particular to do and could have slept in, but I was awake by the usual time and although I told myself I could sleep in for another hour, it wasn't going to happen. I was up and getting in my third outing of the week in no time.

I was tired and it was hard work but, regardless of perception, I managed the same time as the previous Monday when I had been fresher. But what amused me most was that, despite feeling tired and having the opportunity to rest for longer, what happened was that I followed the routine I've been building over the past nine weeks - and without any external prompt. No little supportive message arriving fortuitously, no training programme instalment plopping into my feed, just routine.

I'm guessing I'm somewhere around stage 4 of the change curve - acceptance/rationalisation.

I was reading up on some recent smoking cessation research which found that it can take someone an average thirty attempts to give up smoking before they succeed which illustrates just how difficult it is to make lifestyle changes. I knew a bit about this before I started the training programme, so I knew there would be setbacks - all I needed to do was keep going. Sometimes, this has been easier said than done, but here I am, nine weeks on and routine is becoming just that.

Week 10 Day 1 - first outing at 4.5km, with another half minute less per km.

This morning was similar, after a busy weekend with visitors, barbecues and staying up late drinking red wine, I was very irritable until I was able to get out for my first 4.5km walk/run this week. I'd like to build in more sessions of strength training this week, and be suffiently in control (rather than just getting out there) to try some of the interval training (ie run faster for a short distance, recover, rinse, repeat).

Along the way, I discovered plogging - the art (or practice?) of picking litter while jogging (actually quite hard to do). The verges on my long walk last Monday were awash with litter, mainly fast food rubbish, and I've invested in a grabber (I saw them in another post and had to have one) and a ring thing to hold the rubbish bag. Plogging will have to be a different outing to a training run, though!

I realised yesterday that I should be saying in each post that this is an initiative of the #runningproject. You can read all about it in the latest status report as well as about delegating SP to support the running project and get some passive earnings.