Starting a 5K Running program

(Day 9 of the 365 day photo challenge)

I took this photo at the gym I go to this morning after a long Holiday brake.  It's a bike rack, though I have yet to use it, because who wants to bike home after a spinning class?  Maybe this Summer when I'm in better shape I'll be up to the challenge.

So one of my goals is to run in a 5k.  It seems daunting, and a little crazy, because even when I was a kid doing track and field I could never run a mile without stopping once.  And here I'm going to try for a full 3.3 miles without stopping, and all in a couple months!  There's quite a few programs online and in magazines that say, even if you're just starting out, you only need two months to prepare.  It seems a bit unrealistic, but Sparkpeople.com has a 5k your way rookie training program, and it seems plausible.

The first week all you have to do is walk four minutes then run a minute, repeat three times.  Next week the plan is to walk three minutes, run two, repeat four times, and so on for a full eight weeks. There's a couple races I'm looking at, one in three months, the other in four, and with this plan I should be running a full thirty minutes in no time, no stopping for breaths.

To help with my training I put together a playlist for my ipod, because it's a little hard keeping track of time and intervals, remembering if you're on the 2nd or 3rd repeat.  This way there's no thinking involved, just running and walking!  but when I put the playlist together I realized how there really isn't that many one minute songs.  

So this morning I was rocking it to Inside Outs "Never Tell a Lie," which is quiet silly, the "Finland/Fisch Schlapping Dance" from Monty Python's Spamalot, another out right silly song, and "Dance of the Bellossom" from Pokemon 2000 the movie: I actually wanted to just skip this song, but completed the interval regardless.  At least "Come On Get Happy" from the Partridge Family was only a minute.  It's a nice song to sprint to.  

So one workout down, many to go.  Mastering the 5k is this years goal, and thankfully Utah has so many races each month I can participate in.  Maybe next year I'll tackle a 10k, and get in fantastic shape in the process.

Good luck on all your goals!

Sarah