Spring Resolution

I know it's more traditional for resolutions to come in January with the new year. But this winter, my life was in a state of flux because I was waiting to hear back about a job. I made a throwaway resolution to start investing. Then, on January 2nd I opened an investment account and gave myself a pat on the back.

Now Spring is rolling in, the weather's getting warmed, and my life is more settled than it was a few months ago. Coming from a place of stability is making it easier to think about setting goals. There's one goal in particular that I've been toying with for a while, and now seems like the right time to start pursuing it. I'm going to try and run a 5K.

I started running a little over a year ago, and while I haven't really kept up with it that well, I can run a mile in about 11.5 minutes. This is a vast improvement over my abilities in high school, when I could literally walk a mile faster than I could run one because running forced me to stop and catch my breath so often. But I've been slowly improving, and the other week I actually ran 1.25 miles, which felt like a pretty big accomplishment.

It wasn't long after this that I discovered that my company is holding a 5K in mid-May. I began to consider trying to train for it. Then I discovered that the Couch to 5K training program takes about 8 weeks. That lines up almost perfectly with the 5K I'm trying to run, if I start right away.

I'm not exactly at the couch stage anymore. I can run a mile in a reasonable amount of time, after all. But I'm going to start the program from the beginning for a few reasons. First, I want to build up my endurance. I may be able to run a mile, but I still struggle to keep my heart rate up for more than 15 minutes. I'm hoping the program will ease me into that. The second reason is that my ankle is still my limiting factor. I get fatigued and I start landing on it a little wrong and then it starts hurting and I need to stop. Couch to 5K isn't just for people who've never exercised before; it's also for people coming off of injuries. And while this is a pretty old injury, I'm hoping that by starting a bit slower I'll be able to more easily overcome it.

So there's my Spring Resolution: Run a 5K. I have a plan and will hopefully be able to achieve this in a little over two months. I'm not sure how this is going to interact with my other goal of riding my bike to work occasionally, and I may have to drop that one until after the 5K. But this still seems like a reasonable fitness goal. And hopefully having a concrete goal will help me stick to the training schedule.