I was due today to start week 5 of the Couch to 5K program. So far each week they’ve upped your running time but you stay the same for all three runs that week. Now look what they want me to do.

Day 1: Run 5 minutes, walk 3 minutes, run 5 minutes, walk 3 minutes, run 5 minutes

Day 2: Run 8 minutes, walk 5 minutes, run 8 minutes

Day 3: Run 20 minutes – I feel faint just typing it.

I found out that I’m not the only one that week 5 freaks out. There are forum posts just on being scared of week 5. I added this thought to there yesterday.

I’m due to start week 5 tomorrow and it freaks me out too. At every new level I’ve had the panicky “They want me to do what?” feeling. But I had a sore muscle all during week 4 that made me run super slowly. I’m not sure that I got all the conditioning that you are expected to get from that week. I’m thinking I may do a few more runs at week 4 now that I feel better in order to work on conditioning.

Is that just my mind making excuses to not move up to level 5 or is it legit? I’m not sure. I guess it will depend on how I feel when I get out there tomorrow. Either way sometime this week or next I’ll be able to claim that I have ‘long run days.’ I’m not sure I’ll believe it until I do it!

I went out today and decided to go for it. After my warm up walk I started running very slowly. I got to the first killer hill and my iPod decided to play Swing Low Sweet Chariot. That made me laugh and before I realized it I was at 4 minutes. The last minute was easy. I was in a walking section when I hit the really big hill so that was lucky. I did my second run very slowly also but I still spooked a deer. Sorry. When it came time for the third run section I realized that I wasn’t tired yet so I decided to move out some more. I also decided to head back towards the parking lot. The parking lot is way uphill from where I was. I finished up stronger than I felt the whole rest of the run! I was going uphill and some people were picking their way slowly down the hill. I thought for a second about continuing to run to just blow by them but I decided that I’d probably fall or something if I was trying to show off.