The Running Project 5k Beginners Training Programme Wk 5 Day 4 Update

Losing the beaten track completely, finding my way back with Pilates, listening to Van Morrison, when only a Wetherspoon's Traditional Breakfast with extra black pudding will do.

"When you move in right up close to me
That's when I get the shakes all over me."

Earlier in the week, I checked out Knighton Park as a new running venue. It has more hazards - dogs, small children and a north-south cycle path - but also a brook and an outdoor gym.

For anyone new to this blog, I'm a 63 year old beginner runner never having run for anything more demanding than the bus since I was fourteen and was discharged from school netball classes in disgrace (I may have been chewing gum or something equally seditious). I'm taking part in the running project initiative and following the 5k training programme with @cstrimel.

"Quivers down my back bone
I've got the shakes down the kneebone
Yeah, havin' the tremors in the thighbone
Shakin' all over"

Last week (Week 4!) I finally found my starting place - how far I could run without injuring myself. This turns out to be five cycles of one minute running followed by four minutes walking. To stress, I could run further, longer and faster but only by causing low level injuries and taking the rest the week to recover, which is a little counter-productive. This week, the beginner's training programme is looking at running for distance, rather than for time, with three 1.5 miles/2.5 kilometre runs scheduled. I've customised this to my circumstances and re-configured my personal goals for the next few weeks.

As well as running itself, the other key aspect of the training programme is building strength, flexibility and stability through pre-hab or plyometric exercises. I've been following these since the beginning of the programme, doing between two and four sessions a week of about twenty minutes. My balance and stamina are getting better, but I'm not making the kind of improvements that will prevent the sorts of injuries I'm experiencing every time I run. After trying on my own for a couple of weeks, I decided to seek expert personal help from a Pilates teacher and personal trainer.

"Just the way you say goodnight to me
Brings that feeling on inside of me"

This morning I went to see Andrea Hulet of Andrea Grace Personal Training at the Oadby Yoga and Fitness Studio. I'd heard about Andrea previously, she teaches Pilates classes and one-to-one sessions twice a week at the Studio. This morning I discovered she also works at the University and Leicester Grammar School (both with excellent modern training gyms) and leads road runs at 8.30am every Monday and Friday in Oadby for the University.

Andrea teaches here, a well-appointed studio with small classes.

Elsewhere, I've written about developing routine in your life for whatever it is that you want to do. Making these kinds of life changes are not easy, they take planning and preparation and, once you've started, persistence (three "p"s, I can feel another post coming on). For me, I need to put aside time when I am focusing on what I want to achieve. Often, I will start a class (or a training programme); I'm not always following the class or the programme, but that's the time when I'm working towards what I want to accomplish.

"Quivers down my back bone
I've got the shivers down the thighbone
Yeah, the tremors in my back bone
Shakin' all over"

I'm going on holiday to Cyprus in six weeks. I told Andrea that I wanted to be able to run the two kilometres into the village (a walk I usually take everyday, there and back), would that be possible? We agreed two sessions a week: an hour long class on Mondays and a forty-five minute personal training session on Thursdays. Right, that's it, as far as I'm concerned, that's the strength-building, posture and balance improving bit sorted. All I have to do is turn up, as arranged, twice a week, and I will see a big difference.

Climbing back in to the car, Van Morrison blaring out Shakin' All Over, there's only one thing for it: a traditional breakfast with extra black pudding at the Lord Keeper of the Great Seal - a J D Wetherspoon's pub.

You can get breakfast at 'Spoons from seven o clock in the morning. They have healthy options, too, but I live in a family that doesn't eat pork and, occasionally, well, you have to.