On a running kick

In September, I decided I needed to seriously do something about getting in shape. Over the past year and a half to two years, I’ve lost over 35 pounds, gained almost 20 back, lost another 5 or so, and have been bouncing around in the mid to high 210′s. I keep going on diet kicks that last anywhere from a few days to a few months. It was time for a different plan.

I’d heard a few people mention the Couch to 5K program and it looked do-able. So I went out and bought a new pair of running shoes and a pair of running pants and a nice sweatshirt and got started.

The first couple of weeks I used one of the C25K apps on my iPhone. It has cues to tell you when to walk and run. And you can play your own music in the background. The way the program works is you run 3 times a week, generally something like Monday, Wednesday, and Friday work well. Each day you start with a 5-minute warm up walk, and end with a 5-minute cool down walk. The first week the body of the workout consists of a one minute run, followed by a 90-second walk, repeated til you do twenty minutes total. Week 2 is alternating 90-second runs with 2-minute walks. And it builds up from there to 3-minute runs, 5-minute runs, 8 and 10 minute runs. By week 7 you aren’t walking anymore, just a straight 25-minute run. Week 8 and 9 are 28 and 30 minute runs. By the end of that, you should be running about 3 miles or 5 kilometers.

In the middle of week 2, I realized I could make my own mixes with GarageBand – just spacing audio cues where I should walk and run, and filling the rest up with music of my choice. That eliminated the need for the c25k app. Instead, I started running the RunKeeper app, which tracks your speed, distance elevation, gives you a map of where you run, and sends the record of the whole workout to the RunKeeper website so you can track your progress and show off. Then, I upgraded to RunKeeper pro, which lets you program in your own workouts and gives you audio cues of when to walk and run. Then I just run a random playlist in the background.

Anyway, as of yesterday, I completed week 7. So I ran 25 minutes straight 3 days last week. Not too shabby. I’m sure I couldn’t have done that without the program. It’s not rocket science, but it’s a nice gradient that doesn’t kill you off all at once, and keeps you going and winning. Also, just the fact of being on a scheduled program with daily and weekly goals is great motivation.

The main problem I’m having now is that spring has turned into fall, and is heading towards winter. I’ve been getting up bright and early, only now it’s not so bright. In fact it’s downright dark and early at 6 a.m. And cold. I’ve had very slight asthma my whole life. It’s not something that really affects me much, but if I exert myself in cold weather, I’ll be wheezing and coughing pretty bad for the next hour or so. It’s only hit me once or twice so far this year, but it’s not really gotten that cold yet. I was hoping to finish the last two weeks of the program before it got bad, but wasn’t sure how much more I could go after that. I’ve been looking at a couple of other follow up programs – the Gateway to 8k and the One Hour Runner. But if I embarked on either one of those, I knew I couldn’t finish without running into some serious cold weather.

I started looking into health clubs and gyms both around my home and around work, but nothing is really ideal. The other option was to get a treadmill.

So… today I was in the sporting goods store and hey, look at that. A floor model treadmill, marked WAY down, and a 25% cut off of that as well. It wound up less than half the original selling price. How could I pass it up? I crammed the thing into my car, brought it home, and my wife and I struggled to get the thing down into the basement. Had to partially disassemble it and put it back together. But now I’m a REAL homeowner, with exercise equipment in my basement! Yay!

At any rate, I think I’m all set for the winter. Still mulling over which program to do next. The 8k program takes you back to walk/run intervals, whereas the One Hour Runner keeps you going on flat out runs, from 30 up to 60 minutes.

Anyway, I will use this blog to track my progress through to the end of C25K, and onto whatever I decide to do next.