I have reached the end of week four of the NHS’s Couch to 5K programme, although in real time this is week eight. It is like Clive James’s memoir May Week Was In June, except I wasn’t discovering myself, I was just lazing.
But I do have some observations, the first being that this programme is excellent: unlike almost all other advice I have seen on an NHS website, from eating five a day to going directly to A&E, it seems grounded in expertise – and it works. I am making progress, though the idea that I would happily run upstairs remains tragically metaphorical. It started with running and walking in 60- and 90-second intervals, and now I can run for five minutes without wanting to die (with a walk of two and a half minutes after each stint). But I have yet to find real enthusiasm for it and I have never come close to a runner’s high, where you are so alive with endorphins (according to rumour) that you feel as though you can go for ever.
I have done a thorough scope of things that work and don’t work, in the matter of getting my arse out the door. You would think that having a dog would work, but not this dog, who attacks the lead as soon as our pace tops 6K an hour. It looks as though I have stolen him and it is like running and having a tug-of-war at the same time, which is such an intense and bizarre workout that I should probably patent it (Tug-o-Jog) for a gym chain. Having a companion might work, except that my mister has those running toe shoes that, like socks, are never in the same place at the same time, so he is never in a position to go (and then I don’t, either).
Having a destination is good. Music is good, unless you are using Spotify’s running feature, because an appalling voice breaks in every 10 minutes to discuss your workout. Couch to 5K has a podcast, with a soothing voice, Laura, who tells you inspirational things on the warm-down: “Savour the moment”; “Remember, some runs will feel better than others”; “There is no rhyme or reason to it”; “A bad run is always better than no run at all.” I am quite old, of course, and I know all these things.
Discontinuity is good – I have run in Barcelona and on the Isle of Wight, and felt real affection for those places, partly because of the surfeit of beauty and partly because nobody knows me there, so they can’t realise I don’t belong.
Audiobooks are no good unless you are fitter than I am, as the effort interferes with your concentration and you can’t work out what’s going on. A really thrilling podcast – Dirty John, say – works as an incentive, but I had to listen again. Treadmills are awful, like having sex with a robot (I imagine). Running gloves are magic. Other runners are the devil: always faster, quite grumpy.
What I learned
Endorphin release differs from person to person, you can get there with 10 minutes continuous running or it might take 30. Track your times, so that if it happens, you know how long it took. It then works as a goal/reward system.
- Zoe wears top and trainers by Saucony.
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