The C25K program consists of three workouts per week for nine weeks. This is the results of the workout for week six, day three.

Program: Brisk five-minute warmup walk.  25 minute run.  Five-minute cool-down walk.

Result: I completed the workout as planned. My heart rate averaged 149 bpm and peaked at 168 bpm. Including the warm-up and cool-down walks, I did 2.42 miles in 37:43 for an average speed of 3.86 mph (15:33 minute/mile).

For this workout, I had to make a trade off.  I could skip the day of rest between workouts or I could do the workout in the much hotter temperatures that are due this weekend.  I don’t much care for hot, humid weather.  I certainly did not want to be doing this workout with a heat index approaching 105F.  So, I decided to do the workout early.  W6D2 was only yesterday.  For my workout, the temperature was 67F and it was rainy.  It has been raining most of the day and there was a steady rain throughout the workout.  But, that’s okay.  It helped keep me cool.

As this workout and the remainder are just running and do not have intervals, I will not need reminders of when to run and when to walk.  So, I am skipping the podcasts.  With the podcasts, there was always some pre-walk talking that let me extend the warm-up walk a little further.  Going strictly by time today, my five minutes ended before I got to my normal run start location.  So, I started running early.  Perhaps to make up for starting before my normal location, I also started at a little quicker pace.  I seem to always start at a pace faster than average and then gradually slow down.  Perhaps I should just sprint when I first start running.  I am just going to push at the end anyway.

I knew from prior workouts on this same out and back route roughly where I should be and when.  This helped me not need to look at the watch as much.  But, as I started before my normal location, I also started checking the watch before the turnout point, only to find I still needed to add a few minutes more.  On the way back, I began checking the watch more often.  Maybe being tired makes me more hopeful that it’s almost over.  With the ending corner in sight and over a minute remaining, I switched over to running the distance instead of the time.  This gave me an extra twenty-seven seconds of running.  The little victories are what this program is made of.  Overall, I ran 1.81 miles in 25:27 for a 14:03 average pace (4.3 mph).  Now, I will get a couple of days rest before the next workout.  The heat is coming, but I hope it cools off again by then.