Couch to 5k and
why it’s important to finish it

Couch to 5k by Cool­Run­ning site run­ning plan is prob­a­bly the most pop­u­lar plan for begin­ners out there. How­ever, when I started run­ning, I did not know about it — I first encoun­tered Nike’s Begin­ner 5k through Nike+ web site (I had iPod Nano with Nike+ work­out on it).

Photo by: Vicky McCor­mack on Flickr

I was in ter­ri­ble shape last autumn — I would get tired just chas­ing a bus a short while. I hated this but all my attempts to get into some reg­u­lar work­out failed. I’m also a bit over­weight, but that did not bother me much like the out-of-shape state. I know peo­ple more over weight than me and in way bet­ter shape.

So I gave Nike’s plan a chance. If you haven’t checked it yet, Nike’s plan is basi­cally this:

• Run 4 days a week: Mon, Wed, Fri, Sun
• Mon, Wed, Fri are 20mins work­out on average
• Sun is more relax­ing, but lasts 30 to 40mins
• It lasts 6 weeks; on the last Sun­day you should be able to run 5km with no stopping

First week looked easy. 1min walk, 1min easy jog, repeat 10x. Easy, yes?
Like hell.
I would be hyper­ven­ti­lat­ing after 10mins, which was just plain embar­rass­ing. I real­ized just how badly out of shape I was. So, instead of push­ing myself into injury, I repeated first week 3 times, until I got into good enough shape that I felt com­fort­able to con­tinue with week 2.

This is the key: do not fol­low this blindly, you’ll end up injured and it will do you no good. If you can’t walk home after fin­ish­ing the work­out, you’re over­do­ing it.

The pro­gram lasts 6 weeks, but it does not says any­where it should last exactly 6 weeks. It’s just a plan. What’s impor­tant is that you stick with it ’till the end, regard­less of how much it takes you.

Why?
This sum­mer, I started the same plan again, after not run­ning for over 6 months. I went through first week like a breeze and con­tin­u­ing with the sec­ond. There was enough “shape” left in me from those 8 weeks last autumn, even after entire win­ter and most of spring of not exer­cis­ing almost anything.

You don’t have to get into seri­ous run­ning. Stay casual and still be in good shape. But don’t give up.

p.s. Run Mate is per­fect com­pan­ion to these plans. Check out why.