Now THAT was hard.

I started week 4 of the Couch-to-5K running program yesterday. I had taken the day off work due to sinus problems (my head felt like it was caving in on itself when I woke up), but I was feeling well enough by the afternoon to go out running. Of course, by the time I got changed, stretched and got downstairs, it had started to rain. It was one of those cold November showers that are horrible for running. So I changed course and headed for the ancient treadmill in my building.

The plan for week 4 is: 3 min run/90 sec walk/5 min run/2.5 min walk x 2. So, 16 minutes of running overall, a big jump from the 9 minutes of running in week 3. Everything went reasonably well until the last 5 minute running segment. I didn't feel like I recovered well enough during the 90 second walk, and so when I looked down at my watch halfway through the segment and saw my pulse was already 165, I was legitimately concerned that I wasn't going to finish. Incredibly, my pulse didn't get above 167 after that. But my legs were feeling quite wobbly when I was done.

Incidentally, I was watching The Biggest Loser last night, and watched Neil post a -18 for the week. To put that in perspective, I wasn't even able to post a -18 for the entire month of October. I'm glad I can watch this show without saying, "Why can't I do that?" and then going out and killing myself trying to do it.