Grooved to Run

Today was Week 5 Day 1 of the Couch-to-5K running plan, consisting of three five minute running intervals with 3 minutes of walking after each one.

I thought W4D3 was cold, but I apparently had no idea. Today it was about 18 degrees out with gusty winds making the wind chill about 14 degrees. Bit nippy, but I was able to keep going.

I covered 3.05 miles in 37:48 (12:23 pace). Warm-up was 0.38 miles in 5:01 (13:12 pace). Intervals were in 5-minute/3-minute sets and covered 1.91 miles in 20:59 (11:00 pace). Cool-down was 0.77 miles in 11:48 (15:22 pace). Maximum speed was 6.8 mph.

I’m not sure if it was the extremely cold, dry weather, or if I was just a little soft after a weekend of no exercise, but I struggled with today’s workout. It was particularly rough on my lungs, and I was wheezing a bit even after the cool-down.

W5D2 has me doing 8 minute intervals, so that will be even harder than today. I think I’m going to have to really focus on keeping my pace as slow as possible so I can go the distance.