If I was in a race, that would now be my PR for 5K. I started week 8 of the Couch-to-5K program last night, which calls for a 28-minute run. Including warm-up and cool-down walking intervals, I covered 5K in 40:17, with just about 4 km covered by running. It was not an easy run by any stretch. During the last five minutes, I kept glancing down at the clock every few seconds, silently pleading, "Am I done yet? Am I done yet? Am I done yet?" as my heart rate climbed into the 170s. Hopefully, the next one will be a little easier. Still, covering 5K in 40 minutes feels pretty awesome.
Last week was not really a good week -- too much eating out, not enough exercise. Some of that couldn't be helped, as the vertigo and other factors combined to keep me from running for nearly a week. This week, I decided to really buckle down and stick rigidly to the program, and I'm starting to get good results again. If I can keep this up, I have a pretty good shot at being under 270 before Christmas.
Adventures in Canada, married life, and losing weight.
About Me
- Chris
- Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
My Stats
Start weight (Dec.1/08): 303.4 lbs.
Last update: January 18, 2009
Current weight: 287.9 lbs.
Loss since last update: 4.3 lbs.
Loss so far: 15.5 lbs.
5K: 40:17 (May 24, 2008)
10K: ?? (August 1, 2009)
Try-a-Tri: ?? (September 20, 2009)
Last update: January 18, 2009
Current weight: 287.9 lbs.
Loss since last update: 4.3 lbs.
Loss so far: 15.5 lbs.
5K: 40:17 (May 24, 2008)
10K: ?? (August 1, 2009)
Try-a-Tri: ?? (September 20, 2009)
Blog Archive
- January 2009 (1)
- March 2008 (1)
- January 2008 (5)
- December 2007 (11)
- November 2007 (10)
- October 2007 (5)
- August 2007 (2)
- June 2006 (1)
- May 2006 (14)
2 comments:
I'm doing the couch to 5k as well. When I'm running and my heart rate gets up into the 160s I switch to walking. Do you pound through the running even when you get into the 170s or higher? At what point do you switch to running even if the plan doesn't say to?
Also, did you follow the miles plan or the minutes plan? I'm following the minutes plan and because of my slow pace (5.0 on th running) I never go for as long as I should. So I actually extend some of the plans for an extra repition or two, so I can get a full 45 minute cardio in.
I follow the minutes plan as well. I don't go much faster than 5.0 mph either -- for most weeks, that was my base speed, and I would increase it by very small increments as I wnet through the week. Right now, I'm running at 5.3 mph.
I found that keeping on running even as my heart rate climbed into the 160s helped my build my fitness base a lot quicker. The climb into the 170s was distressing, but it only happened the one time, and I was about two minutes away from finishing, so I decided to keep going to the finish, since my max HR is close to 190 and I doubted I would get into any kind of trouble. If it happened midway through a run, though, I would definitely switch to walking for a bit. Your mileage may vary, depending on your max HR, though.
As for running when the plan doesn't say to, I didn't do much of that. I pretty much just stuck to the plan even if it felt a little too easy, knowing it would get harder later on. A couple of times, when I was running outside, I would intentionally run more than halfway away from the house so that I would have to walk back, and maybe snuck another run segment in somewhere, but not very often. Having been so out of shape for so long, I didn't want to take the chance of overworking myself. My attitude has been that once I get through this plan, then I can design a workout where I start adding on miles or increasing speeds.
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