Week 5 Day 1 of the C25K is officially now in the books.
With a long post run cool down I went 5.2 KM in 46:06 at a 8:51 pace and burnt 559 calories.

Enough of the facts though, this run was pretty hard. I managed to get through it although I walked about 10 seconds late in my last 5 minute running segment.

The workout consisted of a 5 minute walk followed by 3 5 minute runs separated by 2.5 minute walking breaks. I then follow it with about 15 minutes of walking... which obviously lowers my overall per KM pace.

Today was a pretty hot run. 25 degrees Celsius and 70% humidity therefore felt like 33. (91.5 Faherenheit) Whew!

I'm definitely looking for the moderate temperatures of late September early October.

Very busy PMP study day planned. Less than 2 weeks until the exam now.

I got back to the 100 Push Up plan today doing W3D2... and completing 72 PUs.

I skipped the plan 2 days ago due to some shoulder and back pain. Whereas that pain is not gone, when I tried the PUs today I found that neither shoulder or back seemed to feel any problem so I completed the workout. I'll try it again in 2 days and if all goes well I continue moving forward.

I haven't added an ab workout to my plan yet but keeping planning to do so.

Just a very brief update today as I have quite a few work related activities on the go that I must attend to.

I completed W4D3 today covering 5:19 KM in 45:07.
This was a 8:41 minutes per km and 558 calories expended.

I definitely felt ready to stop the running at the end of the 2nd 5 Minute segment but as was true the last day, I could have done another segment.

The perils of the dreaded week 5 lie ahead. Wish me luck!

I had a little detour on he fitness trail yesterday. It appears I've pulled or strained something both in my left shoulder and back. No doubt it's from the push ups. So I'm going to give the push up plan a couple of days off to see how things feel before I resume. This hopefully doesn't affect the running plan which I resume later today.

I went to BMO Field in Toronto last night to watch the FIFA World Cup Qualifier between Canada and Jamaica. It was a fun evening in Toronto. The stands were sold out and were probably at 80:20 ration cheering for Canada vs. Jamaica.

Canada had a slight edge in play and took a 1-0 lead early in the second half. Jamaica came back however, and scored on a corner kick that somehow eluded Canada's normally stellar keeper Pat Onstad. Onstad felt he was held up (someone had a mitt full of jersey) but his protestations were to no avail.

The event seemed to represent a turning point in support for the Canadian team. In the past, international matches in Canada tended to be somewhat lob sided in their support levels with the majority of fans coming to cheer for their old homeland, or their father or grandfathers homeland for that matter. Last night however, probably based upon the recent success of Toronto FC and the great supporters groups, for the first time ever we had a sea of red. There was a lively Jamaican contingent but Canada now knows they'll be well supported when they play again i Toronto. It was great to see.

I completed W4D2 today. The run is identical to the W4D1 run. I went a similar route to the lake and back. I tacked a iittle extra on to the end so the day exceeded 5k because I wanted to get my congratulations from Paula Radcliffe on my Nike+. (It's funny how we all like a little pat on the back, even if it's from a microchip synced to a little voice clip. The run went very well. No problems, ready to walk after my final 5 minute run, but almost felt like doing another set. My pace was slow, but I'm very conscious of getting ready to run non stop, and I think that is the key versus speed right now. Once I'm doing the 5k non stop I'll start thinking about pace a bit more.

On a completely different note, last night I watched Simon Whitfield in the Olympic Triathlon at the magnificent Mings Tomb Reservoir northwest of Beijing. (I have Simon's blog linked on the right)

What a marvelous race! Whitfield is the Canadian Gold Medal Triathlete from the Sydney games 8 years ago. He's still one of the top 10 in the sport. This race came right down to the finish as Whitfield trailed 4 runners by about 15 meters with about 200 meters left. He put on an amazing kick and quickly took the lead. Two runners dropped off and German Jan Frodeno eventually beat Whitifeld by about 5 meters with an incredible sprint. Still, Whitfield is very pleased with the Gold here, and has shown a tremendous ability to come up big when it count.s Have a look at his blog...he's quite a guy. Well Done Simon. I'm going to need a Simon Whitfield audio Clip for the ipod one of these days!

Earlier I mentioned an October race. I'm happy to say it looks like I'll be having my son in law Mike join me in the event. We'll be running the Run for Hope http://www.5ksmrunforhope.com/?ksm on October 13. That's Thanksgiving Day here in Canada, and it's probably good to get the run in before the annual feast. Mike is pretty long and lean. I'll probably see him at the start and by the time I finish he'll be cooled down and ready hit the road. We also will be tracking that race as part of the Phedippidations World Wide Half Marathon, Zen Run 10K, and "Kick the Couch" 5K road race.

If you have a chance list to the Phedippidations Podcast. www.steverunner.com Steve Runner (actually Walker) has a marvelous podcast that he posts weekly. He's been doing it for about 3 years and it's an incredibly enjoyable, well produced program that includes running interviews, discussion, humour and music, as well as some of Steve's generally philosophy. I'm amazed his podcast hasn't been picked up by NPR or some other public broadcaster. It's that good. Thanks Steve!

On my exercise front, today I competed W3D1 of the one hundred pushup challenge. I did a collective 64. Nice change from my 6 during my test before day 1.

I completed W4D1 of the C25K program this morning. After my excitement in the last run I went into this one with a little trepidation. I addressed all of my mistakes from the last run, in that I took some of the asthma medication about 15 minutes before starting, I wore my MIO Heart rate Watch and above all, I started out slow.

The run went pretty well. It's a big step up from earlier runs in that it has 2 sets of 3 and 5 minute running segments. So, for the first time you are asked to go 5 minutes non stop.

I found the first one OK but I was pretty much done as I was into the 2nd one. I managed to complete it, but that was all that was in the tank. Again, as with past runs I'm walking further than the day's program and this time the entire run ended up being about 4.81 kilometers. I took a total of 41:55 minutes. The overall pace that my Nike + calculated was 8:42 min/km.

It will be interesting to see what the time for a 5k will be when I don't have all the warm up, walk segments and cool downs in my October 11 race.