Running with my girlfriend – week 2

Join us as we continue our mission to start 2020 right, with a couch to 5k training plan.

Only the second week in and already a challenge presents itself. Frost. As people that are much more suited to night time excursions than early morning exercise, anything that makes getting out of bed less appealing is going to be a struggle. After an unusually warm winter so far, an unfortunate reflection on the global climate; the cold reared its head to present us a challenge.

It would have been so easy to put off getting up. Wait until the sun comes out, and then go running. But waiting would also have made not going at all an easy option. As I know from history, missing a day in the first few weeks of habit forming tends to lead to just giving up altogether. We couldn’t let that happen.

With tracksuit bottoms in place of shorts, and a hoodie over the top of a t-shirt; we set out for our run.

We started out with a quick walk, and some stretching. This week we did three laps of the local park, the same as week one; but in reverse. It is well known that route variance is important, many people become good at running a route, not good at running. By instilling this from the start it will hopefully be a factor of our running for years to come.

Due to some slippery parts around the route, we didn’t follow the thirty second:one minute routine 100%. Safety has to be the most important thing. There is no benefit in getting hurt.

Despite the challenges of our second week, it was just as enjoyable as week one. The drive is still there, and the performances are already getting stronger. For week three I plan for us to decrease the walk duration by ten seconds, so that we are doing a 30second:50second routine.

Header photo by JESHOOTS.com from Pexels