Still Sweating

I've definitely felt "off" this week. I'm pretty sure it's because of allergies. My sinus have hurt, my nose is slightly plugged though not stuffy and runny, and I continue to gulp for air when exerting myself. I did get myself down to the treadmill on Wednesday, for a twelve minute interval followed by a six minute interval, 30 minutes total on the treadmill. But I skipped Friday, sleeping in instead. Friday night I took a benedryl, and all day yesterday felt the holdover. I don't know if its psychological or not, but I am staying away from benedryl unless the nose gets a lot more congested. Claritin does not seem to help but also doesn't hurt, and who knows how much worse off I'd be if I didn't take it?

I did the 5K today, with an additional change. The routines I've been following have always started with a five minute walking warm-up. I'm continuing that, but now resetting the statistics on the treadmill to exclude that time from the 5K statistics. So the fact that today's 5K time was slower than last week's (which included the warm-up) shows I've got a ways to go.

Today's run was a fifteen minute interval, a two-minute walk, and then I intended to go for another fifteen minutes but instead slowed down after merely five minutes. Another three minutes walk, five minutes run, then walking until just before the end I kicked it up to a faster run till the end. I finished the whole 5k in just over 41 minutes, with an average speed of 4.5 mph and an average pace of 13.19 minutes per mile.

I'm feeling a bit discouraged about my ability to go the distance. I'm nine weeks out, however, so I still have a lot of time to keep working this through. I felt good for the first twelve of fifteen minutes. Back when I started with the Couch-to-5K routine, I was focused on making very long, uninterrupted intervals, but I really really want the walking breaks right now to recover my breath.  I've also only gone twice a week, not three times, for some of these weeks. My tentative plan would be to keep trying for two twelve minute intervals during the week, and try to go longer on Sundays. We'll see how it goes.  But, I'm getting down there. And I do enjoy the first bit of this - and I'm thinking I'll enjoy more and more of it as I do more.

I read a book about women's running that suggested no matter how old you are when you take up running, you can expect to continue to get better for several years - like five to ten - before performance starts falling off. The rapid progress I made in January certainly inspired me to keep at it - and thinking I can continue to progress for a long time is very cool!