My Running Plan

It looks like this running thing is really going to happen for me. I have been doing this Couch to 5k program for many weeks now, and am now on the latter end of Week 5. I repeated Day 1 of Week 5 several times over the last few weeks because I was dreading Day 2, which included two 8-minute runs. When I had started 3-minute runs, it was hard. Five-minute runs were next, and they were also hard. My mind looped around and around the thought of an 8-minute run, and wasn’t anxious to attempt it.

Well, yesterday was one of those Good Days. The kind of day when you know that it’s all in your mind, and if your mind is in the right place, you can do anything. With this in mind, I set out to do the 8-minute runs, and I knew that I wouldn’t die doing it. I didn’t die; in fact, I finished the whole workout, and when the guy in my ear said “cool down,” I was relieved, but I wasn’t dying to be done. 

I had been thinking the next day on the schedule (Week 5 Day 3) would be basically a repeat of yesterday's workout, but I am surprised to see that it requires a 20-minute run. Wow, that's a lot more than 8 minutes, but somehow I know that I will do it. I'm realizing now that this Couch to 5k plan at Week 5 is morphing from a "couch-sitter" plan to a "beginner runner" plan. These remaining weeks will be more of the short run-short run-long run type weeks of a regular style running plan. 

Okay, so I'm on board. I'm going to do this. And, my official 5k Race is on June 12th. I finally decided to sit down and look at my remaining weeks, and to fill them with actual running plans. I have 13 weeks to the race, and I'm putting in my plan already that I'm going to repeat each remaining week of the Couch to 5k program. After that I'll do a 6-week modified Beginner 5k running program. For specifics, here's what I've got:

I'll post the rest of my plan later, but for now I want to say that up until this point in the training I will be focusing merely on "minutes run," ending with being able to run for 30 minutes straight. I'll be able to use the C25k App on my iPhone to complete this, as the guy in my ear will always be telling me when to run and when to walk based on how many minutes have gone by. When I get to the end of the C25k training, I will not yet be able to run an actual 5k distance (which is 3.1 miles), because my speed will be slower than the 6 miles per hour required to run a 5k in 30 minutes. 

After I've completed the C25k training, I'll do my next 6 weeks of training based on miles run, and I'm going to figure out the best plan for working up to being able to run a 5k in a reasonably slow time (45 minutes, maybe?). I'll figure out where to put in fartlek runs (yeah, I can't believe that term either, but it's true; it's apparently Swedish for "speed play"), intervals, and tempo runs. I'm not even sure what all of these are yet, but I have some time to figure it out. 

Sorry for this plan-heavy post, but you know me. I'm a planner. And I need some accountability. So catch up with me sometime around the end of April, and see if I really am finishing Week 9 of the Couch to 5k program. Thanks!