Diverse Ramblings

A question of willpower

This morning I found it harder than usual to get out of bed. A lateish bedtime last night and a for-no-reason 4am wake-up left me groggy and tired.

When the alarm went off at 5am, the temptation to skip my running session and use the extra time for a nap was strong. Very strong.

But I finally managed to drag myself out of bed because I had made a deal with myself - that even on those days when I skip runs (say, due to heavy rain), I will still put on my running clobber and spend half-an-hour on the elliptical machine instead.

Once I was up, the prospect of a run began to sound better. It had been five days since my last proper run - my weekend long run with my sister was more like a long walk - and my legs wanted some exercise.

By the time I left the house, I was running late, too late for my usual 35-minute route, but I decided to go anyway and take a shortcut to reduce the distance and therefore the time. Better a short run than no run at all.


I'm so glad I went, it was one of my best sessions so far.

After a 3-minute walk, I jogged for 15 minutes without stopping, and it was a decent jog, not the same-speed-as-walking jog.

Oh yeah baby.


I couldn't find my mp3 player as I left the house, so I plugged my earbuds into my phone instead.

The media player was set to 'repeat this track' and I couldn't figure out how to undo this, so I listened to Coldplay's Viva la Vida several times in a row.


Not a bad running song, actually.

Patience, grasshopper

I think I am at a dangerous place in my journey to become a runner.

After three weeks of training, I can already feel an improvement - my leg muscles can run longer, the shape of my body is changing.

The change feels good - it feels VERY good - but it is only a tiny change so far, and I want more of it.

I catch myself wondering when I should squeeze in an extra run, maybe I should do doubles (morning and evening) to leave my rest days for rest. Already I am running through the cool-down instead of walking and, you know, cooling down.

So I am reminding myself that one of the strengths of a run/walk program is that it helps stave off injuries by only gradually increasing the load on the new runner.

If I attempt too much, too soon, I may well regret it.

Not so minimalist today

Yesterday my calves were quite stiff and sore, and this morning so were my ankles.

I don't know whether this is due to running in minimalist shoes on Sunday for the first time, or because I ran more than usual.

Just in case it was the shoes, this morning I wore my usual trainers. Outside I found that it rained during the night (and was still drizzling on and off) so I was glad I had the trainers on to keep my feet dry :-)

Today was my first session of week 3 of Couch to 5k. It went well.

If you had told me three weeks ago that I would be able to jog for 3 minutes without stopping, I wouldn't have believed you.

Fleetly medals

Wow, I woke up this morning to find that I earned two medals on Fleetly for my efforts in October!

One was the Explorer medal, for logging different kinds of exercises (I finished in the 20th percentile of 4210 competitors) and the other was the Leaderboard medal, for earning points through logging exercises (17th percentile, yeah!).

Both of these medals are comparative medals, rating me against the sum of the other users. I assume I did so well because Fleetly is still very new and lots of people will have signed up but then only used the site once or twice.

Still, it's great motivation, and I've discovered from other people's profiles that there are other medals I could earn too, yay.

Couch to 5k

Early this year I signed up for the Malta Marathon Walkathon, which follows the half-marathon route of The Malta Marathon and has a time limit of 4 hours. The intention was for me to get fitter by training for it, since I was leading an almost completely sedentary life.

Since this was a late decision, I only had 7 weeks to train, but train I did, following a walkathon training plan that had me doing two short (6km) walks during the week, and a longer walk (up to 15km) on the weekend. I completed the walkathon with my mother in 4 hours and 5 minutes, despite a large blister on the ball of my right foot that appeared at the 15th kilometre and burst (agonisingly) a hundred metres away from the finish line.

After the high of finishing, I decided to continue the training program and work up to running. During the long hours of walking (around 4 hours a week) I had listened to a couple of audiobooks about running, which got me interested. I read running magazines, bought a running book, browsed running websites and tried to visualise myself as a runner.

Somehow I lost my resolve though, and nothing came of that.

Now that the long, hot, sticky Maltese summer is finally over, I have decided to renew my quest to become a runner.

Some day I would love to run a marathon, but I acknowledge that will take a while, so for now I am choosing smaller goals.

I came across a program that looks like it is tailor-made for me, appropriately named Couch to 5k. The idea is that a couch potato can, by taking things slowly, work up to running 5km after two months of training three times a week.

The program is a run-walk program, so training sessions alternating between periods of running and periods of walking, increasing the ratio of run:walk over time as fitness improves.

Hmmm, yes, this might be just the ticket.

Off to do some planning...