Day 3 of my third week of couch-to-5k workouts is now in the bag. So far I am enjoying getting back in shape. It has also been fun to follow other c25k runners on twitter and the forums. I got started with this whole thing when a number of Ruby programmer started talking about getting in shape with a program that assumed a couch-potato starting point. I have had a few insights sense I started and, I've modified the rules to fit with my style and needs.

One modification came from the lesson of the frozen pizza. When I first started cooking for my wife and I, we kept a frozen pizza in the freezer with the promise that if I ever made something completely inedible we could have the pizza instead. In 5 years of cooking, I have never had to use the pizza because what I cooked was that bad. (Though on two occasions we didn't save the leftovers) Having that pizza made it easier to experiment and stretch my limits as a cook. In the same vein, I have told myself that if I ever cannot make a workout, I will simply start over at the beginning of the previous week. Knowing I have an out has made it easier to push through.

Another change has been the warm-up. The program says 5 minutes of brisk walking, but I do my workout first thing in the morning, and except for the first week 5 minutes was not enough to get my legs and heart from bed to run. I now do about 15 minutes of warm up with a couple of 60 second jogs. Walking muscles and running muscles are not the same and I need to get my hamstrings warm before I start running. I also stretch between the warm-up and the actual run. Warm muscles stretch better.

I do my runs at Howe Community Park which has a 1 mile jogging path marked at quarter-mile intervals. The first two weeks of the program are time only, but beginning in week 3 distance becomes the preferred measurement. Unfortunately, I don't have a good way to measure 1/8th of a mile, so I did my first two days of week three based on time. Today I forgot my watch and so I estimated where half way between markers was and ran based in distance. I must admit I like distance better. So here is what I'm going to do for week 4: Run the prescribed distances (why does 1/2 a mile sound like such a long way?) walk distances >= 1/4mi, but use time(90 secs) for the 1/8mi sections. We'll see how it all works out.

My hope is that I can jog/walk in the Paul Reese Memorial Clarksburg Country Run on November 8th. If I can stick to the schedule, I should be starting week 7 by then. I hope that I can put together some kind of interval that will get me an extra 0.6mi a little earlier then scheduled. I've also thought about adding an extra day a week to the program but so far I've not had the energy on Thursday mornings.