Today may have been the first real test for me and my running partner since we started the Couch to 5k Running Plan. Not in a physical way - the run today was much less demanding (I thought) than the previous two - but in a mental way.

I’ve sorted my bed out. Don’t worry, this is relevant. I snore. [”Stop! You’re off on a tangent” I hear you cry.] A cure for snoring (and this works - my wife is a big fan of this method) is to raise the head of the bed 4 to 6 inches. Unfortunately, doing so made our bed start squeaking far more than usual. As a result, I don’t think my wife or I have had a decent night’s sleep in months. A few days ago, we removed the books raising the head of the bed. I snore again but when we both get to sleep now we’re sleeping properly, and I can’t express how much of a difference it makes - it’s phenomenal.

Anyway, back to the story. On running days, my alarm is set for 5:30am. That gives me enough time to find clothes and stagger round the flat blindly to find enough change for a cup of tea at the end of the run. Today, I woke up (of my own volition) at 5am, feeling awake. That hasn’t happened for a while. So I got up and began my morning stagger.

When I noticed the weather. It was raining. Bordering on torrential. I just stood there for a few minutes, to really take in the weather, before going off to make myself a cup of tea. Several thoughts were running through my head. Would my running partner have seen the weather and just gone back to bed? Should I just go back to bed? Is it actually humanly possible to run in the rain? Is it sensible to run in the rain?

6am, as it usually does, turned up at the expected time and I decided to go out anyway. If I ran alone, so be it. This was the third run - the end of the first week, and no magic water falling from the sky was going to stop me finishing the first week! My thinking is that there are several key accomplishments in any plan like this, and achieving each just spurs you on to the next - and makes failure all the less acceptable. The first accomplishment was going out for the first run. The second is finishing the first week. And so on. The next will be finishing week 2.

I arrived at my running partner’s place and she was up and ready to go. So we ran in the rain. And hail. And high wind. We ran on the road, which hurt (I’ve still not sorted out my shoes, so my knees and shins really suffer if I run on road rather than grass). And we finished our first week on a high.

One week down, eight to go. It will get tricky in week three - I’m moving to the other side of Hove so will have to run alone in the mornings. It’s going to be harder to get up and go when someone isn’t expecting me at a certain time. I’m hoping that having done two weeks of the plan by then the move won’t be a problem, but we’ll see.