Boring run

Sunday:

I got out for my week 3 day 1 zombie run this afternoon. It didn't go well.

Firstly, I found it much harder. After a 5 min walking warm up there was a 5 min freeform run/walk -- I did two short run intervals during this time. Then there were the proper intervals; 60 seconds running then 60 seconds walking, plus some knee lifts. This was about where the other C25K plans had started in their week 1 and I'd hoped I'd built up to it by now. I really struggled. After the third interval I thought I was going to vomit and after the 60 seconds of walking I was still gasping for air so I walked the fourth interval and ran the fifth/last. Then there were two 8 minute freeform runs with a 2 min walk in between. On the first one I tried to run for about 15 seconds of every minute. Then the walk rest started. And went on. And on and on. There was a glitch with the app (more on that in a sec) and I ended up doing only one more very short run before going home.

I felt like it was really difficult today, possibly partly from the hayfever (this morning both my husband and I felt better, but after my run and him doing some gardening we both felt much worse again, so being outside was the trigger) but also it was boring. I usually love the zombie app, but today there were no actual zombies; it was a pretty straight training run with a virtual (human) partner. I was going around and around the oval, not enjoying it at all. I tried to focus on my music but wasn't into it.

The very first time I used the app it was glitching on me, and I learned that there are known problems when you pair it with music not downloaded directly from iTunes (to do with DRM locking), I only had one single "purchased" song and the rest of my music is copied across from my CDs (not sure what the legality of this is but it seems fair to me as I have purchased that music, just in CD form instead of from the internet). I bought about five more songs but it still didn't cover an entire workout, let alone variety from day to day. So I made some playlists from my other music and it seemed to be working ok.

The one day last week one of the 30 second intervals seemed to go for about 2 minutes. It was the last one of the day and I actually thought it was deliberate; it fit with the storyline and I thought it was a tricky way to get me to run longer. But today it glitched again and again. The voiceover gives you 15 second notifications when you are running, but several times there was a long long gap between notifications (I just guessed when I'd done about a minute).

Then there was the 2 minute walk that went for about 15 minutes. Finally the voice said: 'Ok now start running. That's two minutes. Halfway, going well. Only two minutes to go. Great work, you're done.' All in the space of about 10 seconds. I guess it was catching up.

So I have the choice of the same six songs, or my music with glitches. Or buying a lot more.