Couch to 5K or C25K

by Karissa

Several months ago I got the crazy notion to start running. I mentioned it to my friend Susan on gchat (like skype) one day and she said that she was thinking about it too. We knew of a program called Couch to 5K that starts you out slowly and over the course of 9 weeks has you running for 30 minutes straight. One of their lines is: if you can walk to the fridge, you can do the C25K.

I thought, well, if Susan and I are doing this, why not invite other people to get on the same 9 week schedule for accountability and encouragement. So I invited people to participate. Most of us are in different weeks at this point. Some people couldn't run now because of the crazy amounts of snow in their area and they don't own a treadmill (see you in the spring!). A few had to stop because of knee issues. But some have been able to keep on keeping on. We even have a forum on the C25K website where we share about how our running is going and to encourage each other.

Eric and I are already halfway through week 6 of the 9 week program. We run on the river walk. It's beautiful. Our city always has a breeze and running along the river gives us the best breeze. It also smells like fish along the run, but hey, fishing is a big industry here. We'll take that if we can each squid as often as we like for a dollar or two.

For the first 5 weeks or so Eric would download C25K podcasts which actually told us when to run and when to walk. For example, the first week we did a five minute warm up walk, then 60 seconds of running, 90 seconds of walking and repeating the 60-90 until for 20 minutes and then finish with a 5 minutes cool down walk. Now there's not as much switching around as we have longer runs and I prefer to listen to Dave Ramsey and just keep an eye on my watch. The podcast distracts me from my running much more than listening to music does.

I never thought I could or would do this. But I am! I run three times a week and have for 6 weeks.

I believe that makes me a runner.