Progress and trepidation

I am not much of a rule breaker. I have been taking my training seriously for five weeks. I started with run/walking and have been gradually building up to longer and longer periods of running, just like I've been told to. I've tried to follow the instructions for each session to the letter; some are longer, gentler runs and some are faster, shorter runs.

So far, so straightforward, which is good because I find complicated instructions tricky to hold on to when so much of my brain power is needed to keep me putting one foot in front of the other.

And this playing by the rules, steady, simple approach has paid off a bit and I've had a couple of breakthroughs. On Friday I forced myself to go out when I got in from work. Exhausted, headachy and grumpy, I was in exactly the kind of mood that would have seen me find an excuse not to go out in the past, but this time I went. The run was even worse than usual. 25 excruciating minutes that used every bit of energy I had. Towards the end I was more shuffling than running. But I did it.

On Sunday, my training plan required a 35 minute run. Given the pain with which I had crawled through the streets for 25 minutes only two days earlier, I was rather despondent about my chances of success. I started slowly and painfully on my usual route, firmly telling myself that I must at least get to 30 minutes before falling weeping into the gutter and calling a cab.

And then I just did it. I slowly, steadily ran for 35 minutes. And not only that, I managed to restrict the obsessive time-checking to such an extent that I actually ran for 35 minutes AND SEVEN SECONDS, which was the time at the corner of the road that I had designated for my next time check (important to have rules, did I mention?)

It's good that I've had two boosts this week because things are about to turn really nasty. The training instructions get more complex and if I am to continue following the rules I have to rope in a personal trainer to help.

Well, I say 'personal trainer'. I mean 'husband' of course. But we both know from bitter, shrieky personal experience that we need to think of the relationship during our training sessions as professional, not personal. I think that when we view each other as our life partner, we expect more. We rather assume that love will spur us on - that I will try harder out of affection, and that he will be more inspiring because he loves me. It doesn't work like that. It's more like we're in an episode of EastEnders, but will less coherent shouting (I go a bit Sarf Lundun when I shout, as it goes).

The need for Steve arises because my training programme thinks it's all very well jogging along slowly for 35 minutes, but really I need to up the pace a bit, so it is throwing in a speed training session once a week. Short (1 minute) bursts of running as fast as I possibly can interspersed with 1 minute rest periods.

As I've said, I need things to be simple. If I am required to run as fast as I'm capable for a full 60 seconds, there is simply no way my brain will also be able to instruct my wrist to lift, my eyes to check my watch and my brain to process what I see there. I am not capable of organising myself to run fast for 60 seconds and then walk for 60 seconds five times. But I might be able to do it if someone else tells me when to stop and go.

So I approach this week with quite some trepidation. The training sessions get more complicated, I need to invite Steve to 'help' me and, to top it all off, the bloody sun's out again.



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