C25K Week Six

I was really excited to start the sixth week of the C25K training program. The first two days of the program go back to interval training, then it's just about lengthening the amount of time you can run for until you hit a 5K. The fifth week was such a turning point that I was getting pretty confident in my abilities to complete these workouts.

 Perhaps I was getting a bit too confident.

The first workout was three running intervals - 5 minutes, then 8 minutes, then 5 minutes again. I pushed myself on the first five minutes and managed to go a full half mile, maintaining a 10 minute mile pace for the whole thing. That's when I stepped wrong and felt something tweak in my ankle. During the walk I could feel it beginning to swell, so I went home. The good news is that I made it home. One of my biggest fears about running outside was that I would hurt myself in a way that I couldn't get back home. Now that I've actually gone through it, I feel a bit more comfortable about getting home in the event of an injury. The bad news was that I had to walk nearly .75 miles on a twisted ankle. The injury itself wasn't too bad, but I can't imagine that helped.

So I went home and wrapped and iced my ankle in the hopes that I would be recovered enough to try again on Wednesday.

But my confidence wasn't quite there. On Wednesday I skipped my run in favor of getting a beer with Kevin and some of his friends. On Thursday I went to happy hour with my coworkers to celebrate a completed product. And on Friday I was just too exhausted to think about running.

Saturday morning I decided that enough was enough. I put on my running clothes and headed out to retry the first workout of the 6th week. But with four minutes I could feel the blood rushing to my ankle again, trying to protect the injury. I thought I could recover on my walk. But a couple of minutes into the second run, I knew I wouldn't be able to finish.

Now I don't know what I'm going to do. The 5K is in three weeks. I've lost a week of training, and I'll probably lose next week, too. I'm not sure I'm really ready for the 5K, based on where I am now, especially if I can't run for a while. I've also already paid for it, and would still like to say that I did it. I guess I'll just have to wait and see how I feel over the next few days.