Couch to 5K? Is it possible?

Wow, I've been invited to add a post to this Highland Roadrunner's Blog! How exciting! Is there anyone reading this blog, I wonder? Well, I'm checking in, and I know DaNae is posting, so there's at least two.

I'm excited about this little "running group". No, really, I am! I am not currently a jogger or a runner, and I'm hardly even a walker, but I WANT to be. I WANT to be someone who goes out for "a jog". In fact, I'd like to even be able to say I'm going out for "a jog" and not have everyone in the room collapse in uncontrollable laughter (including myself). I want to be someone who can actually jog farther than the distance from my front door to my mailbox. I want to be able to jog for a whole song, or even a whole mile! Those are big goals for me, but you've got to start somewhere.

DaNae is actually quite an inspiration to me. Through diet and exercise, she has lost over 100 pounds! Can you believe it? And she didn't even go on the Biggest Loser to do it. So, anytime I can learn from her or tag along with her, I'm going to do it!

To begin my journey to become a runner, I checked out this "Couch to 5K" plan on Cool Running. It's a little training schedule that tells me how to run and walk and work up a little bit each week, so that by week 10 I can actually be jogging for 10 minutes (EEK!) So, this week, I've done 6 miles on the old treadmill, and I actually started with the plan of warm up for 5 minutes, then jog for 60 seconds, then walk for 90 seconds, and then jog for 60, walk for 90. Quite the workout, I must say. On Saturday my music wasn't working and I couldn't find my MP3 player, so I didn't do the interval training, but I did do a 2 mile walk, so I can still pat myself on the back.

It looks like we've got a 5K coming up in a few weeks at Thanksgiving Point. I won't be done with the "training program" by then, so it may still be a walk for me, but I'm excited to try.