As Jeff was in New Westminster today, I decided to skip the prescribed routine for Week 3 of the C25K plan, which is:
- Jog 200 yards (or 90 seconds)
- Walk 200 yards (or 90 seconds)
- Jog 400 yards (or 3 minutes)
- Walk 400 yards (or three minutes)
Instead I chose to simply jog for 20 minutes, only the third time in the past six months that I had jogged for this length of time or longer. It was mild out (12ºC) but a light rain was falling so I wore my subtle ‘n gray long-sleeved MEC t-shirt with my shorts. It actually does a surprisingly good job of keeping the rain off, unlike my jogging jacket, which acts more like a sponge. My Nike+ sensor is still ticking so I set out with a Beach Boys playlist to serenade me as I wheezed and struggled through the initial part of the run. Two things struck me: some of the tracks I was listening to are nearing 50 years old. Egad! Also, the surfing songs in particular really start to blend together when played back to back. I’m pretty sure you could mash them into one epic 60 minute ultimate surfing song. I’m less sure that you would want to.
I finished with an average pace of 5:33/km, which is actually better than my last two 5Ks, though in this case I only ran 3.63 km. After the first five minutes I began to feel the burn but adjusted my pace and made it to the halfway mark after going through a few moments of ‘Lordy, it would feel really good to stop now’. The second 10 minutes were easier and I actually picked up the pace a little toward the end. Given the weather, the park was fairly deserted. The trail was a little mushy along the southern side but didn’t require any real dodging to navigate. My initial 1 km came in at 5:09/km. Slow by my standards but not too shabby given how little I’ve been running this year.
All in all, I was pleased with the effort and I’m relieved to know that I’m already set for the end of Week 5, which concludes with a 20 minute run.
