Tonight I finished Week 5 of the Couch to 5k program from Coolrunning.com. Week 5 was the first week to end with a sustained run, in this case two miles/twenty minutes without stopping. I've been apprehensive about it all week, and was almost to the point of dread and nervousness all afternoon leading up to the run tonight.

I walked over to the John A Cumber Primary school playing field and started the week five podcast, did a lap around the playing field to warm up and then started the two mile "clock" at the corner of Hell Rd and Town Hall Rd. I jogged along Town Hall Road to the fork and turned right and went up Northwest Point Road until I hit Watercourse Road (Crack Alley). I turned there and followed Watercourse back to Hell Rd and turned back up towards the school. I got to just about Club Inferno (get it? a bar in Hell called Club Inferno? no? well neither did anyone else and it's been closed for a few years now) and then walked it out from there back home.

When I got back to our carpark, I ended the workout and (not including the walk and the warm up) it came out to 2.52miles, 27 minutes, average pace of 11'09" and 330 calories burned. Once I got into the run, I started thinking ahead to finishing it, not 'oh my god I'm going to die' or 'my lungs are on FIRE!'. I planned to raise my arms up over my head and let out a big whoop when I hit two miles, but things didn't quite work out according to plan. :) Since I was running around 9:15-9:20 per mile and the podcast was timed to a 10 minute mile, my iPod clocked two miles about a minute before the podcast did, so I actually did 2.1 miles before cooling down.

By the time the podcast told me to slow it down to my brisk walking pace to cool down, I was so out of gas that I didn't have the energy to raise my arms! :) My legs were a little rubbery, and I kinda felt like puking a little. By the time I got home, stretched out and took off my shoes, my heart rate had returned to something resembling normalcy and I was able to have a little whoop!

That's the farthest I've ever run in my life.

I've also been watching what I eat lately, too. As I wrote earlier, six weeks ago when I started exercising again after the accident, I could feel my whole front: belly, moobs, everything sloshing around as I ran. Now things have tightened up a little, but I'm still clocking in at 174.5lbs and 24% body fat. I can't imagine what my stats were six weeks ago if I'm visibly skinnier now! Anyway, since tonight was a milestone (literally) I think I'm going to celebrate a little and break program and have some dessert. I'm undecided if it'll be a brownie a la mode at Legendz, or seeing if Decker's still has their almost-orgasmic chocolate fudge caramel pecan pie or maybe just pop a little further down towards town for a little gelato at Giancarlo's Antica Gelateria.

On a side note, I've had gelato all over the place, and by far the best gelato I had was at a little shop in Florence called GROM. Hands down the best gelato, ever. SECOND best gelato is a tie, between Antica Gelateria here in Cayman and Dolce Amore on Commercial Drive in Vancouver.

Tomorrow's a day of rest and then Monday I hit the road again for Week 6 of the Couch to 5k. Normally today would have been a day of rest too, but last Monday was a holiday, and I wasn't feeling well either so I switched to Tue-Thur-Sat this week. If I keep on-task, I should be hitting Week 9, which ends with the 5k/3m goal while I'm in Tampa for training, so I may repeat one week between now and then, considering i'll be on a treadmill in the hotel fitness center that week and aim for 5k before Christmas!