Aggressive Couch-to-5k Training Group (Page 7)

Newby to the group here.   Hi, my name is Brian and I am a clydesdale...and then some.  I am 46yo, 308lb and 6ft tall.  I run very little so I thought this would be a good start because I do walk quite a bit.  My goal is to participate (and finish) a sprint.   I do have a bike and now that the weather is a little better I will be riding it more often.   I found a cool program called SportyPal that I use on my droid to keep track of my excercise.  I am a type 2 diabetic and I hope I can normalize with more exercise.   I started the program Tuesday, rode my bike yesterday (short easy ride) and walked today...off to a good start. Hmmm, what else do you want to know?
Brian

bike: Leader 736R

Hello all,
My wife, Becky (38) and I (42) are in week 3 of the Aggressive Couch to 5K Program.

I had been jogging 1 mile 3 days a week up until a car accident in December put a stop to just about everything for a few weeks. Becky has never really run much more than the bases on a Softball diamond. We've decided we want to become runners, and we're going to do it together!

We’ve been splitting up the runs into short 30 second segments equally spaced throughout the 30 minutes to ease Becky into running. This afternoon we bumped up to 45 seconds with 3 minute walks between. Our current goal is just to complete the program, but Becky found a 5k in Sacramento this July and completing that is our next goal after the program.

Our longer term goal is to complete a Mini Sprint Tri together later this year.

We have both been cyclists in the past, but only occasional rides in the last 10 or so years since parenthood changed our focus a bit. We've done a couple of 10 mile rides in the months leading up to the car wreck. We are planning on doing a 15 mile ride with our daughters (9 and 6) on their Trek Mountain Trains the first weekend of May. The girls love riding with us. 

We are both good swimmers although neither of us swims the crawl with good technique. I expect that this year we’ll be spending a lot more time in the pool doing laps.

Anyway, hello from us here in northern California,
John

End of week 3 / begin week 4 (the first rest/maintain week).

Yesterday’s run felt good for me. I stretched out durring one of my runs a bit and “raced” my daughter who was on her bike. That felt great. I’m really looking forward to the longer runs.

Becky had an issue with her right foot getting numb, so we are headed to the local running shoe store (Fleet Feet) to get her properly fitted for new shoes tonight.  Is that romantic for Valentine’s Day?

So, I have a question, I just started week 2 and have a question about the running...What pace should I run?  Should I base it on pace, heart rate, or what feels good?

We're in the beginning of week 5. We bumped up from 45 second run intervals to 1 min 20 sec intervals (the last interval was only 1 minute) to get our 9 minutes yesterday. We were definitely feeling it by the last few intervals.

We have been running the last couple times on a track at the local Jr High School to help save stress on joints that we were getting on the local river trail which is pavement. It helps us keep track of distance covered too.

We also joined the local YMCA so that we can run on treadmills if needed when things get stormy outside.

I had to run alone yesterday for the first time since starting the program. I find it’s not nearly as much fun running alone. It was a lot harder to get into a comfortable pace. I think I was going too hard.

Tomorrow starts week 6 and the bump to 12 minutes total running.

As a side note: the week before I started this program I was at 202 pounds and am now down to 191. The rounded belly is starting to get smaller. I’m looking forward to the day that I can see ab muscles instead of this belly fat. I’m heading to the Y tonight to work on abs a bit.

Starting week 7 today. We are going to try and bump our intervals up to 2 minutes.  We did 1 minute 30 seconds for the last several run/walk days and hoping that the 30 second jump wont be too much.

It wasn't too much! Although my legs did hurt a bit durring the run portions; we both feel great this evening after the run/walk. 15/15 Hard to believe we've come so far since the start.

Really looking forward to the day that the legs don't hurt anymore durring the runs.

Congrats!

Lower legs (calves and shins) are just taking too much pounding durring the runs. I gan get through it, but it's no fun. Afterwords there is some soreness, but no real pain after a cooldown walk. 

We are on week 8 (second rest/maintain week) so next run/walk drops back a bit, but if the pain stays like it is things will get a lot more discouraging.