Well now that, that was a doddle. Really. Week 7, Run 1, done.
Today I decided to try a different route for the first time — not wildly different in direction, though, just along the other side of the river. Here’s the route on Gmaps Pedometer.
But it’s amazing what kind of difference the width of a river makes. On the north side of the Avon is the A4, a main route leading from the west of Bristol, where I live, out north and west towards Avonmouth — and then perhaps to Wales, if you join the M49, or down south towards Devon and Cornwall if you join the M5.
As you’d expect, then, it’s far from the pleasant little towpath on the south side. But with the drawbacks — traffic and tarmac — come some pluses, with street lighting, a wide pavement, and a lack of big puddles. I figure this will make a good fallback route as autumn kicks in.
Whether it was the change of route, me getting better at running, or just a particularly good day, I did well. I don’t think I was any faster or slower than last time — my venerable old Garmin eTrex that I carried along says I averaged about 4.8mph, which is about the same. But I paced myself better, and had enough bounce left in me to actually speed up a bit for the way back after the halfway point.
And it was all pretty enjoyable, the whole way through. I felt I had easily enough left in me to shove another five minutes on to the end, if I’d felt like it.
But I shall stick to the plan. There’s plenty of time to push up to half an hour, and there’s always the possibility that I’ll have an off day at some point, just like this was an “on” day…
One interesting point about my new route — I passed a seven mile marker. Not a personal one, mind, but one that’s been put in place for the Bristol Half Marathon, which is happening tomorrow. Good job I ran today; wouldn’t want to get sucked into that by accident. While I felt like I could carry on, I certainly wouldn’t last another 11 miles!
Well done Matt! I was recently looking at the C25K plan and was thinking of heading down that route. But now I need to get back to my dear old walking commute anyway so I’m doing that instead. My first day was yesterday. One thing that inspires me greatly is to look at various online calorie burning calculators. My walks yesterday, to and from work, will have burned the equivalent of about 5 or 6 Mars Bars in all. Yesterday being Friday is the day when all the chaps in the department order an egg & pig baguette, but knowing how much effort it takes to burn that kind of thing off I found it very easy to resist.
I’m keeping a daily journal of my walking activities this time around, thinking that will help me to keep track of my progress. I will also be blogging about it again I’m sure.
Anyway, keep up the good work and I’ll be keeping an eye on your blog here to see how you’re getting on!
All the best,
Chris
I’m well impressed, Matt! I found the furst run of W7 was pretty difficult. In fact, both of the 25 minute runs have been quite hard. I think I need to find a new route to jog to. At the moment I’m just going round a round a big block, so there’s not much objective – it’s more like I’m just trying to use up the time so that I can finish. I think it I was running in some direction, that would help.
I should also put some music on my iPod! I’m still just listening to one jamiroquai album, and love it as I did, I need a change!
By the way – you’re running a really long way now! Wow!
Thanks folks!
Chris — I’ve no idea how my much the running is affecting my calorie count… Certainly I’m not noticing much reduction in my over-ample waistline yet, but I suppose it’s only in the last few weeks that I’ve been running a fair distance. Who knows, it might kick in at some point! Good luck with the walking; keeping a journal’s a fine idea. This blog has definitely helped me keep up with the running…
Benj — Yes, music definitely helps. I adjusted my Tangerine settings a bit this time, to pick slightly slower songs at the beginning, which seems to have helped. Without Tangerine, I’d suggest finding a nice bouncy happy song and hitting the iTunes Genius; it seems to work pretty well for conjuring running playlists!