Raccoon and Lobster

This is the way the 5k ends, not with a bang but a slowly increasing boredom that o’erleaps itself and falls on th’other side

I finished Couch to 5k. I don’t even know the exact date, but I’d been doing runs of approximately half an hour for several weeks and it was dull, dull, dull. Did my hatred of running return? This was exactly the kind of slow, plodding, miserable, wish-my-eyeballs-would-explode-just-so-something-exciting-happens wretchedness that I thought running was all about. So much for runner’s high. So much for being one of those people. They were the dreariest runs of the entire program. Bleh.

Before this malaise set in, I had thought about using the earlier podcasts with their alternating slow and fast pacing to start interval training to pick up my running speed. One night, when the thought of doing yet another half hour of continuous jogging almost convinced me to give up running right then and there, I decided to put this plan into action. Oh glee! Oh delight! Oh mirth and merriment! I bounded and sprinted until my heart pounded in my chest and my lungs ached and then I staggered for breath and did it again and again and again. I finished my run absolutely wrecked, but the smile was back on my face. Apparently I don’t do long, slow, and sanely paced.

So to keep having fun with my runs, I declared the couch to 5k program completed by fiat, even though I’m not sure if I technically completed every last one of those vile long, slow, runs. After all, I can easily do the 5k distance, and have been at least 5k a run for several weeks, it’s just so much more fun to do them in interval form. As a temporary stopgap, I’ve started up the Gateway to 8k program at Podrunner Intervals, which offers me the interval workout that I apparently crave. I don’t yet know if I will be following the program to completion because 50 minutes of continuous running at an even pace sounds even more tortuous than 30 minutes, but for right now it buys me time to find a running program I can love. The interval training has also delivered shockingly impressive results in improving my running speed, which is superb for the ego.

As a side perk, all that running has re-sparked my desire to go to the gym, and of course with all the weights and cardio, yoga seems more important than ever to keep things limber. While the hundred push up plan has stalled in truly dramatic fashion after week after week of standoffs, it is responsible for starting this whole cascade of exercise programs, and I can still do more push ups than most of my friends, male or female. I will be revisiting it soon, after a few more weeks of weights have had time to do their magic.