Nice walk with my wife this muggy morning. Temp in mid 70s with heat index over 80 before sunrise. Last week I tried to do the 1st week of the 9-week C25K program, I was not totally pleased with the program (likely due to my lack of fitness). I felt like when I completed the 1 min run/1.5 min walk, that I never really caught my breath. I was not having a strength or stamina problem, it was a breathing problem.
I read through a couple of Jim Galloway's excellent books... Running- Getting Started and Galloway's Book on Running. Both of these books advise a much more gradual program by increasing running, starting with as little as 3 to 5 seconds of running followed by 1 to 2 minutes of walking; All of this in order to not get out of breath and not "huff and puff". He also believes that it is best to personalize exercise progams for each person.
So, my plan is to rachet back my program to this: I'm dropping back to brief runs of 10 - 15 seconds with 1+ minute of walking between..... running each time I feel totally rested.
Based on this morning's exercise, I feel like I could go on indefinitely.... We'll see. :)
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We recommend in our program walking for the first ten weeks before you start adding run intervals in order to give your frame time to adjust pounding. Typically, most injuries occur at week ten for people because their cardio gets going quite quickly and they increase their running distance before their frame is used to the strain of the pavement. That is why if you walk for ten weeks, you allow your frame to catch up with your cardio before you stress it too much. We started this with our folks in January and now 31 weeks later they just finished an 18-miler!
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