Wondering some things

Okay, so.... I got out a couple days ago and did day 1 of the training -- thought I'd follow the Couch to 5k plan that's out there a lot. And now.... let's just say my knees aren't happy with me.

It's not anything terrible. There's a very definite stiffness and soreness but it's not a debilitating can't walk kind of thing. But after 20 minutes (plus 5 minutes on each side of walking to warm up and cool down) I did shifts of 60 seconds running followed by 90 seconds walking. I felt okay, but it did feel like a lot of jolting around. And actually it didn't feel too bad until the next day.

So the questions come to mind here...

Was it too much? Just from my standpoint of no running at all, was that too much too quick? That's not all that much.

Am I just too heavy to even be thinking about this at this point? It's a lot of weight shifting around on these poor joints and a fair bit of impact.

Was it maybe the shoes? I wondered when I went out (so you'd think, duh! listen to yourself dummy) about the shoes I was wearing because they were a little older and maybe not the most even. I've noticed walking on old worn shoes can have an affect, so running could too.

Am I better off running? Or walking?

Truth be told, the pace I made with the run walk was not really any quicker than some of the walk paces I've done in the past.

Would I be better off just working on a brisk walk, say setting a goal of 15 minute miles?

Or, is it just normal stiffness and soreness setting in that happens when you haven't been running much at all as in my case?

I find myself very torn right now. There's this part of me that thinks... it's just me finding a reason to cop out right away when my body complains afterwards. The other part says yeah but you don't want the kind of knee problems you had a couple years ago, why take a chance? So that first part of me counters that yeah, but maybe give it a chance again by doing one more session but wear the newer shoes and see how it feels. And that other part says I don't want to take a chance right now. Part A calls Part B a whiner, and Part C (the part that is typing) is seriously worried about being schizo.

I am going to target a 5k, but I do think that for now I'm backing down. Part B wins, don't take a chance. A 15 minute mile walk pace is pretty good exercise too, especially for 5k. And 10k isn't at all out of reach.

Or I could do the really, really gradual thing. start with a .1 k, bump it up .1k each week, and in a year I'm up to 5k.

By tomorrow I'll probably have totally rethought the whole thing and who knows, maybe by then I'll be talking myself into marathon training.