Chipping away... like a chippy thing.

Howdy,

I took the lamer choice of not updating until I had a decent number of things to update with... so I've been working quite hard at doing stuff to make myself sound interesting and important.

Firstly, the day after I left LCH I had my driving theory test booked up, so off I went to do that... which was fine, passed and have bought myself a bit more time to pass my driving. In and amongst things we've had a few lessons, which haven't been as bad as I thought they would be after not driving for 6 weeks (!)... so hopefully it'll fall in to place a bit now.

My fitness has been coming along slowly but surely. I really do mean s-l-o-w-l-y, too. I've kept up the walking daily, covering 2-3 miles which is getting more comfortable now, even on 1 litre 02. I've only really had a couple of sessions on the treadmill though... I seem to have becom a little bit more wary of pushing myself a bit, which actually I no longer need to be.
I think it's just a combination of getting out of the habit of daily 'proper' workouts where you get significantly more out of breath, the fear of pain and being uncomfortable, which to be honest it still is a bit, and feeling a bit overwhelmed with life in general.
I did a 2 minute run (6mph, slight incline, 4 lpm o2) a couple of days after I got home, and actually it was nowhere near as hard as I had imagined in terms of keeping the pace and general 'feel' and technique. It was just the breathlessness creeping up a bit too much toward the end that made it less enjoyable. But no muscle pain or tenderness form the operation, which is brilliant!
I then left it about 4 days (embarassed) until today deciding I really do need to start cracking on with it and doing 5 minutes today (3 minutes, then 2 minutes) which was again surprisingly okay. I put the 02 up to 6litres and I think it made quite alot of difference. I felt alot more comfortable for much longer and didn't feel lactic-ey like last time. So I think 6 litres may be about right for now. I'll try and get an exercise test done in the next month to verify this though.

I think now that I'm a bit more motivated (and the ever approaching 10k is about 5 weeks away), I'm going to try increasing the runs by a minute per session for a couple of weeks. And they'll probably stay in 2-3 minute intervals this week.
As in, I'll do 6 minutes tomorrow, have a break the next day, 7 the next and so on, as long as each session is comfortable. Going by this, my short term goal is to be running for a solid 10 minutes by the end of next week. I'll make sundays my longest interval day again as that worked well last time.

That's probably enough from me for now! I'll be back xxx