Couch 2 5K

This morning I finished week 1 of the couch to 5K program. The idea is to work up to being able to run a full 5K in about 8-10 weeks. You do it by walking/running in intervals, gradually working up the amount of time that you are running, with 3 workouts a week.

The first week, you start out with 5 minute warmup walking, then for twenty minutes you run for 60 second intervals and walk 90 second intervals, then finish with a 30 minute cool down. Monday I go to week 2 which is 90 second runs, 2 minute walks, then the next week it becomes 90 seconds running 90 seconds walking, 3 minutes running, 3 minutes walking, and then repeat that cycle once. So it gradually works up.

So far it's gone pretty good. I get a bit winded which is good for me I'm sure. And so far, no problems with knees hurting or anything, that's important and definitely something to monitor.

I mentioned getting the armband. Here's a bit of a snapshot of what it measures. Essentially it will track your activity, so it will show things like how many minutes you're active, it will count your steps, tell you how many calories you burn, etc.

So for example this one shows the calories burned through the day, so you can see what was happening during my run/walk. Now of course the one thing missing is calories consumed, as I haven't entered my meals. But it's a pretty neat tool as I can see the balance between what I've consumed and what I've burned.

And right now, being sans lap band, the key for me is to really ramp up the activity end of things. Of course somewhere along the line I have to get figured out how to handle the consumption part of things, I've been in kind of this freestyle pattern since the surgery without a plan. Hope that changes soon eh?