Friday, September 25, 2009

Keeping My Word

I have been awarded the fabulous Honest Scrap award for the second time by Tammy, and I want to take the opportunity to say thank you to her and to all of my wonderful readers! You are all such a driving force behind this journey of mine and I really couldn’t do it without you and your words of encouragement and advice. I am so happy that I have found a place where I feel comfortable posting my thoughts without feeling the need to censor anything and you all play a huge role in that. I was also given this badge of recognition a couple of days ago, so I already created my list of ten amazing blogs to pass this award onto – as well as my list of ten true things about myself – and it is available to read at that prior post. Thanks again!

As far as looking into the C25K program goes, I kept my word. I already knew that the abbreviation stood for Couch-to-5K, and I understood that the basic concept is to get none runners off of their sofas and into a regimen that slowly builds up their stamina until they are able to participate in a thirty minute run. But until tonight that was the extent of my knowledge on the subject.

What I discovered today is that the program is also designed to allow people to measure their running intervals through either distance or time. I really like that concept and can pretty much guarantee that I would be going by minutes rather than meters. I know I will prefer having the luxury of still feeling accomplished even if I have a day where I am trundling along at half the speed I normally would.

Honestly, it is a little daunting to finally see the actual schedule because weeks seven, eight,and nine have no walking breaks in them at all. I was expecting the last week to look like that, but had thought all sessions prior to then would include the slower paced intervals. So many people have been successful at it though, so who am I to argue?

I haven’t yet made the decision about whether or not to participate in the C25K program or not. I think I need to mull it over in my head for a few days. I also want to investigate where to get the running podcasts that I keep hearing about since that would be an important part of adding enjoyment to jogging. I know that they also exist to help participants know when to switch from walking to running and vice versa, which would obviously be very helpful. Yeah, I’m just not sure… I need to think about it.

I am up earlier than usual tomorrow and have quite a bit of running around to do so I am not certain I will have a chance to post early in the day. I’ll do my best, but rest assured that I will stay on plan and report back in the evening if not before.

FOOD & BEVERAGES:
- 11 glasses of water throughout the day
- 4 prune plums
- 2 pan fried mustard chicken thighs
- 1 cob of corn with margarine
- 1 small slice of whole grain bread with light peanut butter
- 2 1/2 cups of Caesar salad with light dressing, croutons, and 1/2 cup of baby shrimp
- 1 1/2 cups of celery with fat free rancher’s choice dressing

EXERCISE:
- 50 minutes mowing the lawn
- 30 minutes on the recumbent bike
- 4 sets of 30 stomach crunches (2 straight, 1 right, and 1 left)

5 comments:

  1. Yes, the C25K program is good, and although does utilize all running during the last few weeks, you don't have to be fast! You will be surprised how quickly your endurance will improve. And if you don't feel ready to run for that long, just extend the weeks out of a bit.

    I'm not saying you "should" do it, but if you want to, then you can modify the program to fit your needs.

    I'm going to do my "Honest Scrap" post tomorrow!

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  2. You are doing soooo great. Keep it up! :)

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  3. I am definitely not fast in my running, not even remotely! And my plan is to do each week for as long as I need to, not just one week. I want to challenge myself, but having a sense of accomplishment about the whole thing is more important. If I push myself too hard by moving ahead when I don't feel like I've mastered the current week, I'm much more likely to quit.

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  4. You have to figure out what is a right fit for you... but having said that I love the C25K and am running my 3rd 5K this weekend.

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  5. Lots to consider... thanks, everyone!

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