Monday, October 19, 2009

Starting Over At Week 4

September 24th was the last time I ran, and it was a mile. I've been out of running for too long, due to my sprained ankle and bad breathing. A trip to California last week packed on a few pounds, so today was the first day of getting back to running. I decided to start over on my "Couch to 5K" training, in the hopes that starting slow will allow me to get back to 5K shape in time for the Jingle Bell Jog in December.

I picked week 4 as my starting point-easy enough to manage (I hoped) but still enough to actually be able to say I "ran" today. The repeats were run 3 minutes, walk 90 seconds, run 5 minutes, walk 90 seconds. I did that twice for a total of 20:30 minutes of exercise, covering 1.71 miles. It felt good to be out running in the cool (50 degree) weather, and I was pleased I managed to actually do the training. I purposefully kept my pace slow (hovering between 10:30 and 11 while running) and that was definitely a good idea! Going much faster would have tired me out too quickly.

My breathing seems to be doing it's usual thing for this time of year-a hit on the inhaler before I run allows me to complete my run, but my lungs are tight enough that walking up stairs winds me. It's really embarrassing-and perplexing. Hopefully I'll keep any serious sickness at bay this winter and keep working on building my mileage.

1 comment:

Patty said...

It is good to have a goal and a plan to keep you on track. Also, it is nice to have cooler weather, can you believe it is about 20 degrees cooler here today but is supposed to be back up in the 90's by the end of the week. You got the whole range while you were here. It was so much fun having you all here, we miss you so much already! Good luck with the running, and hopefully we will be able to run together when you are back for the holidays.