Let's Get Running Again - Couch to 5k

My 4 legged running buddy

10 years ago I was actually a runner, not a marathon runner, but I regularly ran 5K races with the occasional 5 mile and 10Ks when I wanted more of a challenge. Things came up, work got busy, we moved further out into the suburbs and I slowly fell away from running. Three years ago I got back into it, even finishing a 4 mile race on Mother's day of 2014, but then I developed planters fasciitis and I had to pull back. When I was ready to start again I found out I was pregnant with our younger son, and while it was a pretty easy pregnancy, I was not allowed to run because of a minor complication.


The baby is now a year old and I really want to get back to running and the best way I have found to do this is a program called Couch to 5K. It is a progressive running training program that starts off with more walking than running and over the course of 9 weeks you gently progress to running a full 5K without any walking. One of the great things is the associated app which tells you warm up/jog/walk/cool down as you move through the stages so you don't have to watch the time. I've done it before with success and I know it works for a lot of people.

This time I'm not doing it alone, I'm pushing a jogging stroller and holding on to Lucy, our 4 year old hound.  Running with the baby and Lucy has been working pretty well, provided Lucy doesn't suddenly decide to run in front of the stroller. One thing I've learned in my first three workouts is that pushing the stroller makes me very aware of each incline I come across, our neighborhood is not flat and now I know where every up and down can be found on my route.

Today was my 3rd training session which focuses on 90 seconds walking, 60 seconds jogging. Between my first and second session I dropped almost 2 minutes per mile from my pace, today I dropped a further 25 seconds. I also picked a route that was more of an incline than my previous days, because it was the last day of the 90 sec/60 sec pattern and I wanted more of a challenge.  The route included a small path of rolling hills and I managed to run up the steepest ones, even with the stroller. This was also the first time that the baby stayed awake the whole time and then went down for his nap as soon as we came home, which meant I actually got a shower.

Friday starts three sessions of run for 90 seconds, walk for 120 seconds, here's hoping it goes as well as the first 3.