Week 2, Day 1

29 minutes of exercise: 5 minutes to warm-up, 5 to cool-down and 9 minutes running.

(6 x run 1 ½ minutes, walk 2 minutes)

(Monday 5:15am)

Emotions (before):

Well now that I am a runner (hehe) and have stuck to my routine and schedule, waking up this morning and going for a run was much easier. It is now just something I do on a Monday morning. I must say, I was nervous about the longer running period, but those thoughts were short-lived.

I actually was not at home this weekend and decided to stay one more night away. I am in such a routine now that I had preplanned to take my running gear (just in case) and ran around the area I was staying at. It was great to mix up the scenery. Even though I had to stretch, exercise, stretch again, rest, drive an hour home and get ready for work all before 8:00am, I felt no excuses on why I couldn't do the session.

The run:

The program is so thought out and understanding. It realises that running one and a half minutes is a new feat, so it divides the session into six runs with a two minute walk in between. You decide how fast and hard you can go.

Running the extra 30 seconds was also doable. It was a little bit of a shock when the 'trainer' first indicated there was "45 seconds left of this run". It sounded like a very lengthy half way mark (ha ha, to think the halfway mark is going to soon be 1 minute, 2 minutes...) and I had to count myself down the last 15 seconds to ensure I didn't stop prematurely.

One more thing, I giggled to myself when I ran past a Boot Camp exercise group (who did not look like they were having fun at all) and thought "Wow, I paid $2 for my personal trainer for 9 weeks, and I am still getting a good workout. If only they knew..."

Tips for next run:

• Don't slack off on the final cool down walk. Ensure you keep up a reasonable pace.
• Never break your schedule, you can run anywhere. Plan your time so you can still fit the run in wherever you are and take your gear with you. It is harder to get back into the rhythm than actually doing the run on the day you were going to skip.
• Further on that, if you stick to your exercise schedule, soon it will become a routine and something that you just automatically do at that time, rather than something you need to force yourself to do.
• You decide how fast and how hard you go.