Week 5 changes things up a bit in that the instructions are different for each of the 3 days. Each day (as in all the previous weeks) begins with a brisk 5 minute warm-up. Here is a summary of the balance of the days instructions…
| Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 |
|---|---|---|
| Jog 1/2 mile (or 5 minutes) | Jog 3/4 mile (or 8 minutes) | Jog two miles (or 20 minutes) with no walking. |
I summed up the total time and then added enough walking time at the end so that I was jogging / walking for 29 minutes total.
Last week I was running a total of 16 minutes so Day 1 was not too hard really. I was not any more or less wore out than last week. Day 2 was a little harder in that I was running for my longest distance (3/4 miles) twice. Still though, I completed it without too much trouble. Then there was Day 3.
The instructions seemed simple enough, jog for 20 minutes. Ever since Week 1 Day 1 I have been thinking about Week 5 Day 3. I had admitted to you before that I have not run more than 1 mile straight in my life and now I have to run 2 miles! Normally I do my training on Monday / Wednesday / Friday but the wife and I got home late on Thursday night from a Stryper concert so I postponed Day 3 until Saturday.
I will admit to you now that I did not make it for 20 minutes. I only made a little over 18 minutes but I have plenty of excuses (some of which I almost believe).
- All of the instructions assume a pace of 3 mph when walking and 6 mph when jogging. I have long legs and I did not start out as a true couch potato so it is entirely possible (maybe even likely) that I did jog 2 miles even though I only jogged for 18 minutes (and 10 seconds).
- My walking / jogging path has me crossing only one intersection and at the time where I stopped jogging I was at that intersection. At the other side of the intersection was a man with 2 small girls. The man was posting a sign for a garage sale and I did not think that I could (in my tired state) contain the Doberman if the girls would freak out upon seeing her. I had the option of NOT crossing the intersection but that would mean taking a hard left turn that Nina was not used to doing. Since we have stuck to the same path now for 5 weeks so she is getting to be a like a walking horse who knows the trail. Since she trots on my left side, this would mean me turning into her and in my tired state this sounded like an injury waiting to happen.
- I could have swore I was almost at 20 minutes based on my music. Like past weeks, I made myself a 29 minute mp3 file with the jog / walk parts marked by interruptions in the music. Since Day 1, Day 2 and Day 3 were not the same instructions (like in previous weeks) I got messed up in my tracking of time based on where I was at in the mp3 file. So basically I phyched myself out and thought I was closer to being done than I actually was. This made the first 2 excuses above seem more reasonable since I thought I was only seconds away from finishing anyway.
Anyway, I forgave myself quickly and (though I thought about repeating Week 5 next week) I will move on to Week 6 on Monday. Day 3 of Week 6 has me running for 22 minutes so I will see how far I can get then.
Jon
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