Couch to 5K

Many people tell me that they can't run or can't imagine enjoying running. I was once among those people. I ran slowly and with a lot of whining. I think running is one of those things that people view as something they do or something other people do. There doesn't seem to be much of a gray area. I have been converted to the awesomeness that is running. I really want to help others experience the same conversion. Or at least open them up to the possibility of conversion.

With that as my goal, I started looking into the many couch to 5K programs out there. The concept is great. It lays out a 8-10 week training program starting with about 20 minutes of walking & a little bit of running and at the end, you're ready to tackle a full 5K. My only problem with many of these programs is that at the end, they expect you to run the full 5K with no walk breaks. I think that's pushing the participants past their abilities. I also read many people saying that they couldn't do the last week of training because there were no walk breaks. That leads to frustration and quitting.

I love Jeff Galloway and his run-walk Galloway method. Many of the charity marathon training programs use this method, but not necessarily the same run-walk ratios. This is the method that Team to End AIDS uses it gives them a great success rate. I finally found a couch to 5k schedule that used the run-walk method. I don't know if it's perfect, but it's the best combination of the two programs that I have found. I hope that I can encourage those non-runners out there to give it a shot and see if at the end of two months if you can enjoy running. I'm not guaranteeing that you'll love running as much as I do, but at least you'll have opened up to the possibility.

If you make it through the training program, you'll be ready to take on the 2nd challenge that I issued for 2012. I would love if all of you were out there with me next summer.