Just in case there’s any confusion, the subtitles here are obviously the week of the schedule and then the day of the schedule as well. There’s no day 15 in a seven day week. But it’s day 15 overall.

Week 3. Day 15.

Argh! And indeed, I repeat ARGH! Today’s workout was a daunting one - taking on 8km when my best so far has been not quite 6.5km. It was tipping it down with rain too, but I felt pretty good when I headed out.

About halfway through the average pace seemed to go all weird, dropping massively. I figured that it would shake itself out, but it didn’t. Turns out the GPS had got completely lost. Maybe it was because of the rain? I don’t know. I kept on going, because it felt like the distance was in the right vicinity, but afterwards I discovered it was not.

When I got back home, I went into the activity on Runkeeper and edited the map to reflect reality - so that it didn’t think I had been running through the middle of people’s gardens and across streams.

I was severely disappointed to find that I’d run an entire kilometre less than I was meant to. I really felt like I could have gone on further and hit that target, but I had no way of knowing how far I’d gone. The corrected average pace here may not be entirely accurate, but is certainly more believable than the 8:02 it was telling me halfway through.

I hope this is just a blip and not something that’s going to be repeated. Else I’ll have to look into replacing the Android.

Week 3. Day 17.

Some more intervals this time out, but they took me by surprise. I thought I’d got to the end of the run then bam: 20 seconds fast. Oh, alright then.

Not a great run overall. I can’t blame it on anything, it wasn’t going particularly well from the start. Although I did have to pass some more annoying little boys with big mouths, which was quite distracting. It may have spurred me on to run a bit faster, although it was at the uphill bit which didn’t exactly help.

Roll on the next one.

Week 3. Day 19.

Wow. This could be the worst run ever.

It was hot. What with all this rain and wind we’ve had, I forgot what kind of effect the sun has on the out of doors. If I’d thought about it, I wouldn’t have gone out till later. Since I was going slow anyway, I figured I could try out a new route for the longer distances that are coming up. Got a bit lost.

That massive spike you see? That’s where I pressed the pause button so I could cross a busy road but it didn’t actually pause. Damn it. My average time was ruined from being stationary for so long, but it makes no odds. It was never going to be a good one.

I also developed a real pain in my thigh in the last couple of kilometres. It felt more like a trapped nerve than a muscle kind of pain - the way it was shooting down into my leg - but not as excruciating as trapped nerves can be.

When I first got in, I was really disheartened, but after a shower and a rest, it’s not so bad. The only tough thing with doing a class like this is there’s no real time for a do-over. I spend most of the time a day behind anyway, because I haven’t been able to run on Sundays.

So, assuming my leg is okay, tomorrow is a short run with an interval extension on the end. I’ll probably take it easy.

Week 3. Day 21.

I had to take a couple of days off to rest up my leg. I’m sure it is muscle-related, and the way I was limping around the house, Mr C wouldn’t have let me out even if I wanted to. So, I took a couple of days, and as I did so, developed a wicked sore throat and cold. I’m loathe to complain about colds because they’re nothing like what I had in January, but still, it kept me inside for even longer.

It seems fitting, considering I had just written that there is no time to get behind on this programme, that I suddenly found myself a week behind. Finally, seven days after my last run, I managed to get back out of the house.

Not particularly good. That spike in the middle is where I had to pause to walk up a hill. I was out of energy, even though I’ve run that hill many times before. Towards the end of the run my thigh was starting to ache again, despite the fact that it’s been fine all week, so I had to pause for a second time.

I got to the end of the run but it wasn’t fun. The past fortnight has really knocked the stuffing out of me. I’ve been left thinking, why am I doing this? Is it even fun? (Having blogged it all really helps with this one!) My body shape seems to stop me running fast, but running slow makes little dent on my body shape. I’ve taken a massive step in the wrong direction, and now I don’t know if I have the motivation to bounce back again.