Yesterday was L and my first workout from the Couch to 5k program. As I sit here typing this, the outside of my left ankle hurts, my butt hurts, my thighs hurt, my hips hurt and my abs hurt. The rest of me feels A-okay! The first week of the program involves a five minute warm-up walk, followed by eight one minute jogs interspersed with 90 second walks. I’m not gonna lie, it was hard for me. The first one minute run seemed to last forever. Runs 2-6 were okay, 7 and 8 were difficult. By the time I walked back to my house (~15 min cool down walk) I felt so fatigued I had to lean against the wall in my foyer to take off my shoes. Oof dah. I am even more out of shape that I thought.
I’m hoping to complete day two of the training program tomorrow (Tuesday). If by the third run it still seems as difficult as it was yesterday, I think I will repeat Week 1 again before progressing to Week 2. I know that the biggest source of injuries for new runners is progressing too much, too fast. I really don’t want to hurt myself, and I’m going to try to be patient and not skip ahead in the program.
Boy, seeing all of those runners out there on the lakefront path jogging merrily along for an hour at a time was really humbling. The thought of running 30 minutes without stopping feels UNTHINKABLE to me right now. The thought of running even five minutes at a time seems impossible, considering how fatigued I was yesterday after only one minute. I’m hoping that in six weeks I will read back over this and be amazed at how far I’ve come– remember when running one minute straight was a challenge? Rawr! Here’s hoping…
