44. Couch to 5K

Mile 41 – Easy, dry and I’m building up speed.

The NHS developed the Couch to 5k and it’s a common starting point for lots of people who want to take up running for the first time. You can play it while listening to your own music on your headphones, it just cuts in with instructions.

The first lesson involves a mixture of brisk walking and jogging: five minutes of warm up, then alternating sessions of 60 seconds jogging/90 seconds walking, before the final five minute cool down walk. It lasts about half an hour.

I guess if they called it ‘Couch to Marathon’ it might put some people off but I like to think it is part of the same progression.

With little else to worry about this week, still in my 100 days post Stem Cell Transplant isolation, I concentrated on exercise. I have been cautious about running, worried about setting back my recovery, so I worked on the exercises given to me by the physios at UCLH, along with static cycling and walking.

It hasn’t been very light early in the mornings but I have dragged myself out three times this week for training rides in the garage. My legs are feeling stronger as a result and I can run up the stairs when Sue asks me to fetch something. On Saturday morning I woke up in the mood to walk up the next hill along the South Downs, past the windmills and up to Keymer Post. The cloud was very low and before long I was in it. 

t was, once again, very peaceful, and I clocked up eight miles, gaining 271m elevation, in just under three hours. 

That exertion gave me the confidence to attempt a trial jog on Sunday morning. I found my running kit at the bottom of the drawer, set myself up with the Couch to 5K app along with the “Energy Booster: Metal” playlist on Spotify and off I went. 

The exercise level seems just right for me at the moment. After 60 seconds I need to recover my breath. I’ll have to schedule a couple more of these sessions this week and I’m already looking forward to it.

—oOo—

Healthwise I have been fine, boosted by my COVID vaccination on Friday. In that context, over the last year I have gone from volunteer to patient because last year I was helping to welcome and direct people at Clair Hall. This week’s visit was very quick, ten minutes from the first “Good Morning, do you have an appointment?” to the “Would you fill in the questionnaire before you go?”. The nurse giving the jab warned me to expect a sharp scratch but I didn’t feel a thing, to the extent that I wondered if she had jabbed me at all. Despite all the warnings about common side effects such as flu symptoms, I have felt fine since. The only clue that it was administered is a tender area on my shoulder. So now I am COVID-proof and looking forward to mixing with the masses with their winter colds when my 100 day isolation is up in just eleven days’ time.

—oOo—

After my long walk on Saturday morning, what a fraud I felt when my friends from Cycling Without Age came over in the afternoon to take us out in the trishaw. In the last year I have gone from pilot to passenger. These rides are normally reserved for the elderly and those who can’t get out and about. I should be ready to take the back seat (the one with the pedals) again soon next year.

—oOo—

Earlier in the week we looked after Bonnie, who helped deliver Christmas (or at least run up and down the stairs with me as I fetched the tree from the cupboard).

Thanks for reading and take care.