The surprise twenty minute run

I recently completed the Couch to 5k programme. In about nine weeks, it took me from not running at all to being able to run five kilometres in thirty minutes. (It was a little over nine weeks in my case as I injured my knee part way through.)

The entire course is well structured, building your abilities and self-belief up as you go. However, there's one part that really stands out for me, so much so that I remember how it felt even now. Up until the end of week five you are running for, at most, five minutes at a time with walking breaks in between runs. Then, suddenly, at the end of the week you run for a solid twenty minutes. It's a shock. Or it was for me. But you can do it — and that, the fact I could suddenly, actually run a solid twenty minutes, was a real shock for me too.

That push to suddenly run twenty minutes marked the point where, in my mind at least, I became a runner. Before it I dabbled, after it I ran, steadily building up to the comfortable five or six kilometre runs I enjoy a handful of times a week now. But without that push, without that shock, I'm not sure I'd have made it. Not because I couldn't do it, but because I wouldn't have believed it. There is a huge difference between running twenty minutes as four five minute runs with breaks and running a solid twenty minutes — and the biggest part of that difference is in the mind.

This twenty minute run point got me thinking:

Where am I limiting myself to five minute bursts?

What am I doing at present that I tell myself I'm just 'dabbling' at because I've not challenged myself, or had that push to 'run twenty minutes?'

Where am I mistaking the experience of building endurance for a sign I should give up?

Running from couch to five kilometres is hard. As the instructor says — it is mostly about just putting in the miles. The entire course is built around developing endurance, keeping going, remaining motivated. There is no way I'd have run one kilometre, never mind five without the endurance and stamina building work of all those weeks. It's worth noting that mental endurance is as important as physical here — if not more so.

Where am I mistaking temporary fatigue for exhaustion?

Perhaps it is a 'second wind,' but there's a point I've hit a number of times during runs when my body — or mind — gets tired, or bored, of running and signals that it's time to stop. Pushing through that I've often reached a point where everything feels comfortable again, but it would have been all too easy to stop. I find parallels in the work I do — there's often a point where it all feels hard, where it feels sensible to give up, take a break, but so often that point comes before a breakthrough or period of flow.

When should I listen to my body?

In a reversal of the fatigue question: when should I learn to stop and rest. I injured my knee somewhere around week six and, thankfully listened to my body and stopped running for a week or two. Since then I, and my knee, have been stronger for it. I'm not always as good at this when the injury or fatigue is less obvious, and I've experienced the crippling exhaustion of burnout as a result.

All of these questions have huge parallels in my career and work. My experience of unknown knowns has a lot in common with a surprise twenty minute run. Suddenly finding capability that you'd previously have scoffed at. Right now, I'm thinking a lot more about where I can put these lessons into practice.