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w5d3 has been staring me down for a while looking like a 20 foot tall frightening beast. I repeated w5d1 and d2 twice to build endurance. Tonight I went for it. I decided that the best way to slay the beast was to establish a conservative pace that maybe didn't get me two miles in distance but got me thru twenty minutes in time. End result, I did 1.8 miles in 20 minutes and slated Goliath on the clock. Didn't stop once in the 20 minutes and according to my meter kept a pretty consistent pace. My legs aren't shot. I feel pretty good physically tonight, mentally I feel very good about myself. I'm quickly going from a "never ran" to an "I can do this". I'm staring week six in the eyes and for the first time since starting I don't feel intimidated.

As 2014 comes to a close in the next week, I feel the need to reflect on some major accomplishments that I owe all to the C25K program by ZenLabs. I started this journey back on April 14, 2014 with some motivation from my wife and family. Running was never something that I was jealous of, really, never understood why someone would just "run" on their own. After starting the program, I had signed up for my first 5K race. It was a Father's day race, which was fitting, seeing that I am a father of 3 under the age of 5. My goal was to finish the race without injury and have a baseline for the rest of the year. Finished that race in 26:41 with an 8:36/mi pace. Blown away! I finished the race and faster than I could have imagined. Maybe I have something here, was a thought that I had racing in my head. Maybe this running thing could be for me. Will I ever finish first, no, probably not, but is that the goal? The goal to me, was to finish at a faster pace/time than the race before, even if it was just a second faster. Now, I needed to get the understanding that I may not be faster than the previous race because each course is different and some may be faster or more flat than others. This has been an internal struggle with me because of my nature and not wanting to fail. Fast forward to today. I have completed six (6) 5K races with the last being my best race of the season, running a 22:16 at a 7:10/mi pace! I have also thrown in a 10K in the middle of September which was run at 52:59. Upon posting this I have logged 304 miles which includes the C25K program at an overall pace of 9:05/mi. The most impressive thing for me is the amount of energy I have and how I feel if I don't "get a run in", the fact of the matter is that I have become one of those "runners" and I can not thank ZenLabs and their C25k program for getting me there. Oh, my scale thanks you too, dropping 20lbs and a full pant and shirt size in a mere 8 months! Looking forward to 2015 and my first half marathon!