Running For 2 Weeks... with breaks obviously

As I mentioned previously I am training for 7 weeks for a 10k run. I have just completed week 2. Here is the schedule I followed:

Monday: run for 30 mins
Tuesday: rest
Wednesday: run for 30 mins
Thursday: rest
Friday: run continuously for 3 miles
Saturday: rest
Sunday: rest

This schedule makes it appear that this running is the only training I am doing. I am randomly doing sit-ups, press-ups, tricep dips and leg raises and also going out on my bike on rest days. Not far, just round trips of 6 miles to see family and back. Hopefully all this will improve my general fitness and help with my running.

Paced myself nicely on Monday. Covered just under 3 miles in my 30 minutes and wasn't nearly as knackered as I have been on my previous runs and I could have gone further.

I read somewhere that the rest days are almost as important as the training and this is proving to be the case. I have not been hobbling or limping the next day and when I start a run I feel fresh and ready to go. In a previous running life I have been guilty of repeatedly running 2 days on the trot and then not running for 5. The first day would be easier because I was well rested, but running was unfamiliar as it had been days since my last run. I had to find my feet again, as it were, to remember my pace. The second day would always be a killer. It felt as though I was starting off from my previous day's run. Consistently spaced running already seems to be the way to go.

Wednesday was very good. I was looking forward to running. Maybe the fact that I had announced to the world that I am doing this 10k and I have got £60 worth of sponsors in only 24 hours had something to do with it. I need to succeed at this, but also enjoying what I'm doing helps. I paced myself nicely and ran more than I have done previously in the time. It was just over 3 miles. Not mega far, but halfway to my goal and I could easily have run further.

Friday was hard, but ultimately fulfilling. My plan is to do my longer/harder/faster run on a Saturday or Sunday, but plans this weekend simply made that impossible. So Friday it was. I set off at much too quick a pace. I was out of the starting blocks like Usain Bolt and was starting to get a little out of breath after only a couple of minutes. I really wanted to beat last weeks time of 26:57 for 3 miles and was a bit over eager. I kept the pace up for maybe a mile and then had to ease off a little. I still managed to maintain a decent pace and finished in 25:45. Shaving nearly one and a quarter minutes off last weeks time. Who's ya daddy!!!

I have been listening to music this week too. After Sharon dug out her iPod nano and charged it up. She has one of those armbands for holding the nano and it makes life much easier than carrying mine. Unfortunately it also means that it is full of Sharon's music. We have completely differing tastes. In that I have taste and she listens to The Backstreet Boys and Britney Spears. Our one cross-over in tastes appears to be Michael Jackson, so until I can be bothered putting some of my music on her iPod that will be my running music of choice.

Don't forget to sponsor me here http://www.justgiving.com/craigwtonks/ It's for the NSPCC.

Beat it.