Couch to 5k – Week 1 recap

It wasn’t very long ago when I wrote my first post about my Couch to 5k plans and my reasons for starting the program, etc. I just thought I’d do a quick recap of my first week and my feelings on it so far.

Let me first refresh your memory about what the first week involves. My wife and I are doing the program together, and we have to do 3 sessions per week. They start out with a 5minute warm up walk. We usually try to stretch out ahead of time and we do the walk at a pretty brisk pace, just going up the road from our house. It’s a very small road and isn’t used often so although we do occasionally encounter cars, it isn’t very often. After the 5 minute warm up walk, we start the rotation. We have to alternate 60 seconds of jogging and 90 secs of walking for a total of 20 minutes. By this time we’ve usually run/walked all of the way to the main road and come back nearly to the house again, and we finish off by walking the rest of the way home. I must say that the first day was a bit of a shock for me, as I hadn’t done any running for quite a while and had only been playing ping pong for exercise. Anyway, we had some scheduling problems because of recent rainstorms and we almost didn’t go on the last run. We finally made it happen right after a thunderstorm passed over and although we got a little wet and muddy, I felt much better having done it. So far it doesn’t seem like a chore once we got on the road, although inevitable desire to avoid the task does occur. We’ve gotten through it so far with help from each other and I feel good about starting the second week. I feel like my body is already adjusting and I’m ready to up the amount of running I do. One thing I must remember is to be careful about what I eat before a run. The last couple of times we’ve done this, I had eaten too much without enough time between the meal and the run and found the full stomach a bit trying, so I’ll be adjusting that as needed.

So as you can see, I’m still on the path to success. I prefer running on slightly cooler days so hopefully the weather will be in my favor this week. Wish me luck, and why not give this a try with me? If you start now you won’t have missed much at all!

Couch to 5k

I was recently in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho and witnessed quite an interesting spectacle. I was in town helping my parents with an office move and some computer issues and I just happened to stick around long enough for Coeur d’Alene’s annual Ironman competition.

When I first heard about Ironman, I thought those people were crazy. I told myself I’d never ever want to do something like that, and that those people were just weirdos who craved some sort of punishment in their lives. After seeing the diversity of age and fitness within the competition, though, I started to think differently. It was actually quite inspiring to hear the different stories behind these people’s attempts, which ranged from extreme medical conditions to obesity. All of these people were brought together on one day to test themselves more than to compete with one another.

Now I’m not saying you’ll see me out there next year, or even the year after that. What I am saying though is that I’d like to take better care of myself, get into better shape, and maybe think about doing a tiny portion of the physical exertion required in that competition at some point in the future. I can’t ride a bike over a hundred miles, swim over 2 miles, or run over 26 miles. That’s the point. They can do all 3 and I can’t do any. That got me thinking about running. Running is something which I absolutely despise, yet I envy people who can run and enjoy running. I’ve never been great at it, so I decided to work myself up to the task. Enter Couch to 5k.

I figure that if I can go through 9 weeks walking/running 3 times each week and make it until the end, that is both a good thing for my fitness and a good test of my willpower and my ability to stick to a plan and make it my own. Here are the details of my plan:

I’ll keep you up to date on my progress as I go forward in the process. So far I’ve only done 1 day (tomorrow is my second day) so I have a long way to go before I’m finished. By all means let me know if you’ve had any success with this and if you’d like to share your story on mindreap.

Keep in mind that I didn’t invent this plan, and you can see more about it at Cool Running and Couch to 5k. One thing I think I’m going to try to do is to listen to some of these Couch to 5k podcasts which are floating around. I know some of them have music and then tell you when to run, when to walk, etc. It sounds like a pretty good way to concentrate on motivating yourself and the running/walking itself rather than having to stare at your watch or something the whole time. Here is a list of podcasts lifted from Couch to 5k:

Robert Ullrey’s C25K Podcasts
Podrunner Intervals: First Day to 5k
Lestyn’s C25K Podcasts: No Music
Couch to 5k – Christian Indie Tracks
Phedippidations: The C25K Episode
C25K App for iPhone

Ping Pong – Healthy AND Happy

When you think of ping pong (perhaps you call it table tennis) you probably don’t think of fitness, but when was the last time you saw an obese pro ping pong player? I know, the average ping pong player is probably very different physically than a pro, but you get my point. Any moving is better moving than no moving, right?

I haven’t really done anything physically in over a year and a half and as part of my new plan for success in life, I’d like to get fit. I’d like to lose a bit of weight and just get to the point where I feel a bit better. When I got home from my recent trip back to the US, there was a ping pong table awaiting me upon my return.

The great thing about ping pong is that there isn’t really much to it. It’s a simple game with relatively few equipment requirements. Once you’ve got the table, the paddles and balls are hardly an expensive purchase. On a lot of tables, you can lock up half the table so that you can play on your own against the far surface of the table or you can play with someone else in the usual way. While ping pong starts out at a basic level just dinking a ball back and forth over the net in a pretty awkward way, once you introduce the more advanced aspects of the game such as spin things get a lot more exciting. Spin always you to introduce a lot more force to the ball and before long the ball will be flying back and forth across the table from corner to corner as the competition between you and your partner heats up.

I started playing one day and the next I was extremely sore so I knew that I had been working muscles I hadn’t used in a long time. To top it off, once I get started I don’t want to stop. After a while dodging back and forth for the ball, I work up quite a sweat and it really does end up to be a decent workout for me, and I’m sure this only increases along with skill level. I’m not claiming ping pong should be your only form of exercise, but it isn’t a bad place to start. It’s tons of fun, interactive, competitive and it gets you moving. If you’re not great at first, don’t worry. Spend a day or two bending over to pick up the balls you’ve missed and you’ll get exercise anyway.