C25K Week One

I started the Couch to 5K training program this week, and I thought it might be a good idea to write about it. If nothing else, I'm hoping it will hold me accountable to finishing the program.

I started by downloading an app to my phone. Since the program relies heavily on interval training, I knew I'd want some help keeping track of those intervals. Having someone telling me when to walk and when to run (and when I'm halfway!) helps keep me on track. Each run also includes a 5 minute walk to warm up and a 5 minute walk to cool down at the end.

The next step, a highly important one, was to build a running playlist. I've spent most of the last year listening to Daft Punk's Discovery while working out. While it's definitely good music to keep you pumped - especially since Interstella 5555 still has me associating the second song with a chase sequence - listening to the same music every day was getting a little old. So I went through my music library and created a short list of songs that I'll hopefully be adding to or altering in the weeks to come.

The Running Playlist!

The next step, surprisingly, was downloading a special app that let me transfer playlists from iTunes to the music player on my droid phone. Luckily this is a common problem and solving it was super easy.

I had a couple of hiccups with the app on the first day, but the workout itself went really smoothly. The treadmill I run on is in a basement where I don't get a signal. This caused the app to yell at me about the lack of GPS signal and warn me that it would be able to compute my distance or pace. But I had the treadmill to do that for me, so I didn't really care. I also realized about halfway through the workout that my music list wasn't shuffling, which was going to keep me from hearing the majority of my playlist. Then, while I was messing with my phone during one of the walk segments, I accidentally turned off the treadmill, so I wasn't able to see my total distance at the end of the workout.

But like I said, the workout itself was really easy. All three of the workouts in the first week are the same: run for 60 seconds, walk for 90 seconds, repeat eight times. The running segments felt incredibly short, and I was almost surprised when I started to feel the workout about halfway through. By the end I felt like I could have gone longer, but I could also tell that I'd been working out.

Before my second workout I spent some time playing with the app. I discovered that it has a treadmill mode and a shuffle music mode in the settings page. Using these options led to less fighting with my phone at the beginning of the workout. I also started increasing my speed on the short runs because I knew I could handle it. I was actually surprised to discover that my heart rate, which had been a bit all over the place during my first workout, was much more consistent this time around. And thanks to not killing the treadmill, I was able to see that I'd "traveled" 1.8 miles in half an hour. Given how much walking is involved, I was actually a little surprised at this figure.

For the third run of the week, I decided to take a stab at outdoor running. Of course when I made this decision, they were predicting that the weather would be 60 and sunny. By the time Saturday actually rolled around it was only 45 out. It turned out that's a pretty good temperature to run in, though. The part I liked less was the wind, which seemed to gust up every time I hit another running section of the workout. Between the hills around my house and the wind, this run was surprisingly difficult. I thought I might die a few times, and I had a really hard time starting the final run. My walks were definitely too slow, too.

I'm trying to focus on the fact that I succeeded, though. I made it through the entire work out and managed to at least jog every time I was supposed to for the full 60 seconds. I'm hoping this gets easier with time. I'm also hoping that the GPS decides to work on my phone next week. It was refusing to turn on today, which meant I didn't get any stats about my pace or distance. I'm not sure if that information would have made me feel better or worse about today's run, but it would have been nice to have.

Stay tuned for week 2. After today's difficult outdoor run, I'm betting that the next treadmill run will be easy again. And at least next week I'll have friends to do the outdoor run with me.