To recap: I started doing the Couch to 5K programme to improve my general fitness. I picked it because it provided a goal and because it didn’t require any specialised gear. I had a few struggles along the way (see parts 1 and 2) but eventually completed week 6 of 8. It should be simple to complete the last two weeks, right?

Sadly, no.

I finished part two with the following advice to myself:

the lesson was to push myself but not to push too hard, to back off a little and not to be afraid to repeat either individual days or whole weeks.

Of course, I didn’t follow my own advice for week 7.

There was a reason for my cavalier attitude: it was coming up to Christmas and I wasn’t sure how much I would be able to keep jogging over the break. I ambitiously thought that I might be able to complete a 5km run before the end of the year. (Spoiler alert: I didn’t.)

But, whatever the reason, I surprised myself by managing it. I successfully completed week 7, day 3 on December 18. I did slow down bit by bit over the week, but I achieved my goal of jogging for the whole time (which was 25 minutes without stopping at this point).

But I’m writing this in March! What happened?

First: life.

I went away for Christmas so I wasn’t able to continue my normal routine. I did bring my jogging gear with me and slightly surprised myself by actually going out. I didn’t even try to start week 8 at this point, instead I just set a rough target of being out for about thirty minutes. I didn’t even really plot a route in advance which was probably a mistake. You don’t get hills and traffic lights and pedestrians on a treadmill!

Running on real roads and paths gave a nice sense of camaraderie that you don’t get in the gym, with people smiling and saluting as I lumbered and sweated along.

Back in the UK in January I tried to pick up where I left off but immediately hit difficulties. Given that I’d not maintained my routine for a few weeks this was not entirely unexpected, but the amount of time it took to get back on track did.

After a number of failed runs and false starts I ended up going all the way back to week 6. I settled on day 2 for a while (jog ten minutes, walk three, jog ten) for a few runs, feeling unable even to progress to the last day (22 minutes run).

And this is where things stayed for over a month. Not only was I not really progressing, I was also not very consistent. One time I would manage twenty minutes straight, the next ten minutes was a challenge.

I’d gradually inched up my speed over the previous month, so I tried slowing down again but it didn’t have much effect. It seemed to be the amount of time running rather than strictly the speed.

I was still getting way more exercise than I was previously, so while I wasn’t failing exactly, I did want to have the satisfaction of completing the programme. This lack of progress was getting frustrating.

Then I hit on a theory: I wasn’t resting enough between runs. At this point I had been continuing to run three times a week, typically on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. While I hadn’t really been recording my progress, anecdotally my better runs were on Mondays.

To test my theory I switched my runs to Mondays and Thursday. It turns out my hunch was right. It took a couple of weeks from this point but on 3 March I completed the programme, running for the full thirty minutes. A week later I managed it again but at the higher speed.

So technically I’ve still not run 5km yet. It turns out the programme is for 5km or thirty minutes (I guess the full name is less snappy). My exercise session, including the warm-up and cool-down, is over 5km now so I don’t feel that I’m cheating too much!

So, what now? I have two goals. First, I want to improve my consistency. I still have some better and some worse days. I think mostly I just need to keep at it. Secondly, I want to up my speed. For the next few months I want to get to doing the full thirty minutes at 10km/h so I can say that I actually did a full 5km.

Non-goals: running further or longer. I only have so many hours in the day!

Anyway, I kind of amazed myself by finishing. If you’ll excuse me, I’m tired and need a nap.