My sister started the Couch to 5k ahead of me. I can't remember who told me about it. It could have been her or my Mom but I of course hit the Google (sic) and thought "Oh! This looks like something I can do. I don't even have to run a long time for a long time. There's walking mixed in and I like to walk. I do that all the time!" So I grabbed the podcasts from Robert Ullrey's website and stepped outside in my running shoes.
Here's an interview with the creator of the Couch to 5k program. I like how his focus on the program was to make running something people would do without getting hurt and how he intended to focus on giving those who followed it a habit of successes as we trained up. As I write this I'm on week 8 and am running 28 minutes at a time now without stopping and it's only a 9 week program so I'm getting nervous. What next?
The Couch to 5k program is around a 30 minute program with a five minute warm up and cool down on either end of the half hour and it's every other day except at the end of the weeks there are two days off in a row. There are a couple weeks where there is a long run on the end of the week so the two days off in a row are welcome recovery times. The hardest part of this program for me was to not go too fast. There were several times when I wanted to do more than it said but I told myself when I started that I would follow the program and not make up my own.
I didn't want to get hurt or screw something up and quit. I know how I am and if it hurts I'll bail on it faster than you can say "Pass the syrup." So I made myself do it in order and like the site said to. There was a hard week which repeated and there was a week that I missed a few days because work wasn't allowing me to run so I backed up a day and did that week over again too. Slow and steady wins the race was my motto. And, while the program says "feel free to do weeks over again" it doesn't say "Oh, and just skip whatever weeks you want to and go as fast as you want."
I'm a fan of structure. In my non-running life and my work life I'm list maker and check-box user. The Couch to 5k running program was perfect for me and probably anybody I know who had the stick-to-itiveness to do it. A lot of people I hear on podcasts or out in the world who talk about running say that they started it for weight loss and that wasn't why I started running. That's good too since I haven't lost any weight! I started because I like to run. I loved running as a kid. Remember when you were little and just ran because it felt good? Yeah. That doesn't change. What changes is we quit running. It's still there and it still feels good.
Showing posts with label C25k. Show all posts
Showing posts with label C25k. Show all posts
Monday, November 30, 2009
Saturday, November 07, 2009
Google Android My Tracks & Do-over
No more Bones In Motion log information for me for a while. I ditched the Blackberry Storm (You can keep it thankyouverymuch!) and am now a proud owner of the Google Android on Verizon’s network. I got the HTC Eris for two reasons 1) It’s named Eris! All Hail Discordia!!! and 2) It’s not Motorola (whom I don’t like at all).
I got to do Week Five over again as I only did it partially last week then stopped running for almost a week. I started over on Week 5 of the Couch to 5k. Honestly, the break came at a good time. My calves were really sore and achy for some reason. So I spent nights stretching them while I was off and will continue to do so. I may start doing Yoga in the morning if I can find another half hour in my day to do it in ARGH. I don’t know what I’m going to do when/if I start doing long runs. I’ll need more time for sure.
Today was beautiful. The BIM Active site shows Weather Information that this one doesn’t show. I hope BIM adds android support soon.
All in all it was a good run and I was glad to get back to it. My Nike+ shoe pod kept stopping working saying I wasn’t moving so I probably won’t keep using it after I get some software on the Android that I love. Which is too bad because I really do like the interface and the challenges and community around the Nike+ site.
Total Distance: 4.41 km (2.7 mi)
Total Time: 30:41
Moving Time: 28:50
Average Pace: 6.96 min/km (11.2 min/mi)
Average Moving Pace: 6.54 min/km (10.5 min/mi)
Min Pace: 4.76 min/km (7.7 min/mi)
Min Elevation: 296 m (971 ft)
Max Elevation: 320 m (1049 ft)
Elevation Gain: 96 m (316 ft)
Max Grade: 5 %
Min Grade: -13 %
Recorded: Sat Nov 07 09:53:47 CST 2009
Fort Dodge, Iowa (Airport)
From Wundergound
Temperature: 61 °F Clear
Humidity: 42%
Wind: 8 mph from the North
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Hardest run to date
Today’s run was the suck. It was Week 5, Day 3 and it was supposed to be 20 minutes of uninterupted running with a five minute warm-up and five minute cool-down. That would have been my longest run yet. My previous longest runs were 2 8 minute runs with a break in between of 2 minutes. I was in South Dakota and it’d snowed and I didn’t know where anywhere good to run was so I foolishly decided I could do it on a treadmill. I should have known better.
I ran 10 minutes before taking a 2 minute break and then running the last 8 minutes of the twenty-minute run. I just didn’t have it in me to do it on the treadmill. My shins and calves hurt after the first five minutes. I’ve got to figure that out. My pace was steady, obviously, a treadmill, duh. I’m not sure what the deal was. I tried varying the incline as well to see if that would help, but it didn’t.
Lucky me tonight’s hotel room got the upgrade to a hot-tub suite so I iced after I ran then hit the hot-tub and then iced again afterwards. I’ll ice one more time before I go to bed. I will repeat Week 4 I think before doing Week 5 again. It sucks to go backwards, but I was dying today on the ‘mill.
Next week is travel for work to long meetings in Denver and I’m not sure if there is a dreadmill in the hotel and I’m not sure how I’d do running in their rarified air so not sure what will happen next week. Glad Sunday and Monday are recovery days though. Monday’s a travel day by air so the first day I’ll have to figure out for working out is on Tuesday. We’ll see what happens then.
Until then. Ice is my friend.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Week 5, Day 1! Ran outside today
| Ran outside today. I got to run outside today which doesn't sound like much except that I've been doing a lot more treadmill work than I liked when I was out of town last week. That means of course that my shins hurt and that I didn't get any GPS data to use so no Bim posts while on the treadmill. The winter months are what are putting the most fear into me about running. I dislike the treadmill quite a bit, not because it's boring but because I hurt after I run on one and I don't know what I'm doing wrong. I thought it was pace, but it doesn't seem to matter if I slow it down or speed it up. My shins hurt when I treadmill it. Today when I ran after two day break going into Week 5 of C25k my shins and calves were still sore from the run 3 days ago! I'd gotten a massage yesterday and the massage therapist commented on how tight my left leg was and he worked to fix it. I'm going to try to go back again tomorrow. I think it helps and it's certainly relaxing. Highly recommend massages to anybody with tension. (The real kind, not the "with happy ending" kind.) So, sore, I ran today, intent on not pushing too hard. Don't want to over-train and cripple myself out of running so soon. I ran gentle with short steps and high turnover and did OK. I felt fine even at the end of the run. It was more running than last week, and the next day of running is even longer, 3 8 minute sections I think it is!!! Maybe just two. I have to look. I wasn't any more or less sore after I ran so the running wasn't a mistake. That's where I was going with that. I got side-tracked. Continuing to run, not looking forward to winter and the treadmill, but looking forward to continued running. I said to my roommate today that I put the elite in athelite (sic). He laughed and politely disagreed. He's seen my running form. :) Activity
  
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Saturday, October 17, 2009
Why I run.
I’ve been doing the Couch to 5k training program to ease me into being able to run a 5k race from being a couch rider who didn’t do much more than walk and hike. I read Born to Run by Christopher McDougall. The thing with running books, running podcasts, and stories about runners, is that they’ve always hit me on an emotional level. This isn’t true of all sports. I read and really liked The Blind Side by Michael Lewis but it didn’t resonate with me on an emotional level. I just really liked it.
Running for me though is something that is singular in the sports world to me… I know it’s not. Golf is all you too. But with Running there’s no technological advantage to be had by the wealthy. I don’t think you can buy your way into being a good runner. I do believe you can build a good football team with money. I also believe you can pour money into cars to have an edge in racing. Running though is a guy and the road and at some point it quits being about muscle and starts being about personal drive and desire.
There’s a point in running when the runner is running not on strength but on will power and those stories are the ones that hit me in the stomach. The story of Terry Fox’s Marathon of Hope makes me cry every time I hear it. He ran 3339 miles in 143 days and he only had one leg. The other’d been lost to cancer. Phedippidations, a running podcast that I enjoy a great deal and have listened to for hours for the past couple weeks, has a great podcast about Terry Fox.
When I was in college I ran. There was a track between the University of Montevallo where I first went to college and the off campus house I was living in. I would go at night, in secret and run around the track. I never ran very far, and I never ran very long. I remember listening to the soundtrack to Joan Lui while I ran though. Still when I listen to my favorite song from that album I remember those night time runs.
I never told anybody, and didn’t stick with it because I was afraid I wasn’t very good at it. I’d never run track in high school and if you ever look at runners while they’re running… they’re not beautiful creatures. Nor are they graceful or awe-inspiring. They’ve got a sort of zombie-like shuffle that they do, and their faces are either pale or flushed, and always glisten with an unhealthy wetness. I was far too self-conscious then to admit to anybody that I was a runner.
I’m still self-conscious but there’s something about it now that’s different. Something that hit me when I was playing golf with my Dad. There is only one thing I can think of that looks more ridiculous and laughable than a golfer’s posture and swing… and that’s doing it badly and looking like an idiot and still having to chase the ball. It dawned on me that day on the fairway that golfers don’t look stupid to other golfers unless they golf badly.
Running’s the same way. I’ll look tired. I’ll look like I’m shuffling along and look nothing like the tall lithe Kenyans who break land speed records. But I’ll be doing something that I’ve wanted to do for over 20 years but was too embarrassed to do because of what other people would think. What a stupid waste of my time.
So. I run. I love to run. I like finding limits and pushing them. I like that I’m doing something that most people don’t/won’t do. I’m not doing it for my health or to lose weight. I expect it will improve my health and my weight’s not bad enough to really bother me that much. I’m doing it because I like it. I like it outside, and I like how I feel after I’ve run.
I’m going to run a 5k race in the spring. I don’t know where or when yet but I’m going to. I haven’t got a goal time yet either. But I want to run at least one 5k in spring and maybe a 10k in the fall. I doubt I’ll ever be good enough to run a marathon, but by next year I wouldn’t rule out a half-marathon if the running gods smile on me.
If you decide to run, or if you’re a runner, I’d love it if you’d drop me a line, say “Hi” or even point me towards some more good running podcasts or websites I might find helpful. Like I said. I’m a complete newbie to this running thing and while I enjoy it, it doesn’t mean I’m doing it right at all and I can use all the help I can get.
Thank you all for reading this. I know it was longer than my usual blog posts. Take care of yourselves and the ones you love.
Furthest and fastest run so far
| W4 D1 Today was my furthest run so far and my fastest. One of the reasons it's the fastest is that it's Week 4 of C25k so there's 2 five minute segments of running and 2 three minute segments so it's more running and less walking than previous trips. The other reason it's faster is that I turned it off and didn't get the cool down as part of the running. Now the cool down part of the exercise increases the distance but does so at the expense of the pace. Obviously a five minute walk at the end of the run is going to make it look slower over all. Today though was three miles without the five minute cool down at the end. That's not bad at all really. I'm not sore in my shins like I was the day I ran much less on the treadmill. I think this is answering the question on whether or not I will get a gym membership and use their treadmill or not. I think the answer is no so far. But that's not a firm "no." Not yet. Activity
  
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