8 Weeks to Train for a 5K

I am not a runner. Let’’s get it out there – just so we are clear. I have never been sure why people run, unless perhaps, they are being chased. I don”t get the euphoric runner’’s high that some people describe when they run. I run because I have to. It’’s part of the cardio rotation and I know it is good for me, will help me burn calories and ultimately lose weight, be healthier and generally feel better.

So, why am I running a 5K?

A couple of reasons – as long as I have to run, I should run for a cause, a reason, and to me personally, this is a good one. This particular run is in honor of a 16 year old girl in our community who has been diagnosed with a very rare form of cancer. She has been at St. Judes for more than a year and our community has been holding fund raisers and events to help support this family as they continue to fight for this young girl to beat her cancer and come home. All proceeds from this run will go directly to the American Cancer Society. I am so blessed to be healthy and have a healthy family, I am privileged to run in this event and help raise money for this cause.

The second reason would be that I need to continue to challenge myself with workouts. I have committed to this run and another run in August and by changing how I run and train to prepare for these events, I continue to challenge myself and add variety to the otherwise, regular and boring treadmill.

The third reason is that it gives me an opportunity to be part of our local community and get involved with something that involves other people. We live in a beautiful, small town in Pennsylvania and while the Winters are a drag, the Spring is beautiful and the course for the run will be along the Susquehanna River and to one of the famous Covered Bridges in this area. I don”t normally run outside, so again, a nice change from normal.

I think it is time for some new shoes!

Greg will be running too, although his training will differ greatly from mine because he is much more athletic than me and much more competitive. I do not compete. I am not in it to win – my winning comes from within and the ability to make progress in my quest for a healthy lifestyle.

The run is April 17, 2010 which is one day after our 27th wedding anniversary – so it will be nice that we are doing something together. That gives me 8 weeks to train. I did a run/walk last August and did more walking than running. My time was 41.31 minutes which is about 13 mins per mile. I came in 79th out of 131 runners – not too bad considering I hadn”t done anything like that in years and I didn”t do any additional training to prepare – I just showed up on race day and took off!

I am taking a different approach this time. I am spending the next 8 weeks modifying my workout to prepare for the race. This means I will have to pick up one day in my workout schedule – which kinda bums me out because I like to completely relax on the weekends – but the training schedule I have says to train 3 days a week and since I weight train 3 days a week and have 2 days for cardio – I have to add another day. In doing some research today, I discovered that iTunes has free download podcasts that are designed to train for a 5K in 9 weeks. Each podcast has music that keeps the pace and builds up the time that you run vs walk. (No thinking or counting involved – I like that!) Because I am already doing cardio – I am going to start with week 2 and see how it goes. Here’’s the breakdown and remember – I am a beginner.

Week 1 of 8 – Mon/Weds/Sat
5-minute warmup @ 128 BPM 90 seconds @ 138 BPM 2 minutes @ 128 BPM 90 seconds @ 138 BPM 2 minutes @ 128 BPM 90 seconds @ 138 BPM 2 minutes @ 128 BPM	90 seconds @ 138 BPM 2 minutes @ 128 BPM 90 seconds @ 138 BPM 2 minutes @ 128 BPM 90 seconds @ 138 BPM 1 minute 50 seconds @ 128 BPM