Thursday, June 11, 2009

You Have To Walk Before You Can Run

Woman running on the beachLast week, I ran on Wednesday and Friday. For this week, I ran Monday and again this morning. I didn't run Wednesday morning due to a work conflict. Unfortunately, my job sometimes requires me to log on from home at odd hours of the night. So as it turned out, I had to do some work at 2:00 a.m. Wednesday morning. Since I need more than four hours of sleep to function properly, I decided to wait until this morning to run.

I am always amazed at how quickly the human body adapts to exercise. When I first started running (June 1), I could only run for 45 seconds at a time and as I went on, my running time kept decreasing! The first time I ran was 45 seconds, the second time I made it to 40 seconds, then eventually it dropped to 35 seconds! A couple days later, I was able to run for 45 seconds each time. Last Friday, I was able to run for 60 seconds a couple of times, then it decreased to 45 seconds. Monday and this morning, I was able to run for 60 seconds each time I ran! Pretty cool, huh? Another interesting thing was that, for the first time since I started running, it seemed like the 20 minutes flew by - instead of me saying, "Ugh! When is the 20 minutes ever going to be up?!"

Couch to 5K Running ProgramI am following Coolrunning.com's "Couch to 5K Running Program". You can take a peek at Weeks 1-3 to the right. As I mentioned in my previous post, my daughter - Rachael, is doing this with me.

Well, I guess Rachael and I are considered "Pre-Couch" (LOL!) because we can't quite keep up with the plan as it is laid out. So instead, we are using it as a guide to measure our progress. You have to crawl before you can walk, right? Well, you have to walk before you can run too!

Although we're on Week 2, we are only doing a 20-min. workout of 60 sec. run/90 sec. walk. So our next goal is to be able to do a 20-min. workout of 90 sec. run/2 min. walk -- however long it takes us to get there.

Instead of jumping from 60 seconds to 90 seconds of running, we are going to inch our way there. For example, when we run on Saturday, we will run 70 seconds. Then on Monday, we will try to run for 80 seconds. Hopefully, by Wednesday, we'll be running for 90 seconds at a time!

Soaring Wings Half MarathonWhile googling last week, I read that beginner runners should sign up for a race as soon as possible - to help solidify their goal by having a date on their calendar.

So I signed up to participate in Soaring Wings Half Marathon, here in Conway on October 24th. Rachael is also planning on signing up to run in the race. I'm so excited!

If you runners out there have any tips for Rachael and I, please let us know!

Thanks for reading!

Laura




Related Post:

Running: From Thinking About It To Actually Doing It!


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6 comments:

The Fitness Diva said...

Go, Laura!! I'm so happy to hear that you're really getting into the running thing, and yes, signing up for a race will help keep you focused and in mind of getting out there and tearing up some turf!

Good luck to you on all of this! :)

Meghann said...

good for you! Always watch your knees and try to stretch gently before and after running. Not necessarily to avoid injury, but to keep you limber. I wish you the best of luck in your program, I'm sure you'll do very well :)

zoft gum said...

Nice Article! Its nice and beneficial for health to run every morning. Warm up is best before running as it makes your body ready to run.

Laura said...

Fitness Diva - Thank you! I'm excited about it too!

Meghann - Thanks for the tip! I've read that stretching after running is actually more beneficial than before running. I think that's so interesting!

Zoft gum - Thanks for the tip! Exercising first thing in the morning has always been the best time for me.

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James Reno said...

Yes, so good to see your progress and have it documented. I am experiencing similar things with my vertical leap exercises. At first one set of the 5 exercises killed me, then 2 sets, and now I am doing 3 sets. Tough, but it has helped me increase my leaping 6 inches so far!

To Your Health!
James Reno (editor)
Raw-Food-Repair.com

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