... the "Couch-to-5k" plan, that is!
Michael is training for a 5k too, and he's doing the "Couch-to-5k" plan, and, even though he's at week 6, and I'm at week 2, it appears that there are at least certain aspects of that plan that thought out better than mine.
On my plan, today was supposed to be a "run 10 minutes" day. Yeah... that's not happening. Like I said yesterday, I don't have the endurance for a longer run like this... and the Couch-to-5k has longer activity than I was planning on my "hard" days, if you will. So, today I walked (swapped my running and walking days this week), so tomorrow I will run again.
Then, tomorrow, I'm going to do workout #2 on week 2 of Couch-to-5k:
Brisk five-minute warmup walk. Then alternate 90 seconds of jogging and two minutes of walking for a total of 20 minutes.
Thursday, I'll walk again, then on Friday I'll do workout #3 on week 2, etc (which in this case is the same).
I like this plan because it's realistic. It doesn't tell me to go run for 10 minutes. It understands that, darn it, I can't run 10 mins straight right now... so let me run 90 seconds and walk 120.
So, this is basically a meld of my old plan , the Couch-to-5k, a little bit of the Beginning marathon training plan, and the Beginning 5k plan from Runner's World.
In general, M,W, F will be a walk -> run/walk day; T,Th, Su will be a run/walk -> run day.
This is a much more realistic plan for me.
Btw, walked a mile and a half today and my legs are feeling it... gotta stretch those calves!
2 comments:
I'm no expert, but I'm thinking that the Couch to 5k is going to work better for you over all. For one, it gives you complete rest days, which I have found is crucial when just starting out. Two, you have that time to devote to your other responsibilities.
I also wanted to mention that there will be times when you won't be able to finish the prescribed run. That's totally ok. There are tons of factors that go into you performance on any given day like the weather, the amount of sleep you got the night before, what you ate that day, etc. It doesn't mean you won't be able to complete the next one. If you feel that you are really lagging behind, repeat a week.
Keep with plan and run your goal race, even if you don't feel totally prepared. There is no shame to taking walk breaks during a race. It will still give you race experience so you'll know what to expect the next time and you'll know where you stand fitness-wise when it's said and done.
Yeah, I'm going back and forth with what I actually want to do... part of myself says I should take the rest... but the other part of me knows that when I take one day off, it turns into one week off. Though it won't allow me to rest as often, it WILL keep me going on the plan.
We'll see though... after this week I may switch again!
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