C25K: W5D3 repeat (#3)

I’m going to stop writing w5d3 repeat (fail) as my subject line for these 20 minute run attempts because it’s too discouraging otherwise. Instead I’ll just increment the try count- today was my 3rd try toward a 20 minute run.

On this day, my first run was just a shy of 13 minutes. Then I eased into a 4 minute walk followed by a 4 minute run.

Objectively I am making progress on several fronts, even though I’m nowhere near making the goal of of 20 minutes yet. I progressed in both my run length (up to 12:50 from 11 last attempt) and my recovery requirement between run intervals (only a 4 minute walk instead of 5 minute walk). I also made progress in my total run time – up from 16 minutes in w5d2 to 16.60 minutes today. Finally, I am gaining in my average speed over the entire session (incl walk and run segments) when I view the trends over the past few weeks (excluding the treadmill sessions I’ve done b/c as expected you can run faster on a treadmill and excluding the few sessions I’ve done where I only ran 1 short segment b/c of course you can run faster if you don’t have to endure as long). Today I ran the first interval at an average of 4.7 mph; I ran the second at an average of 5.

So I will continue to put my running shoes on every other day and keep hacking away at this goal of 20 minutes until I make it. I’ve never been one who was good at being patient so this is a real test of character for me. I really liked the early weeks of the program where progress was fast and dramatic. This week and last has been hard on my spirit.

My stats (the dramatic drop during the first interval is when the dog stopped to go to the bathroom): Garmin Stats

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