OK, so for 3/4 of a year now I’ve been walking nearly every day.
I saw my doc last Tuesday and even though he and his nurse both made a lot of noise about how much I’ve slimmed down, my doc still wants me to lose at least 20 more pounds.
So I’ve taken a little more junk out of my diet and I have decided to jog instead of walk.
I rarely swear online but: Holy fuck! and Holy fuck! again!
I hurt in places that shouldn’t be associated with jogging. I have pains in muscles that I would not have thought were used during a jog.
I also have a big old blister on my little toe. And I got a cramp in my left calf.
Ah yes, exercise is good for you! Tomorrow: a nice walk, then Tuesday another jog.
(When I started walking last September I was recovering from surgery and couldn’t even make it 6 minutes without thinking I might pass out. Now I can regularly go two miles or more, so I figure it won’t be too long before my body adjusts to jogging.)
I just started Couch to 5K this week myself. My body is protesting in similar ways to what you all mention: “DUDE. You have trained me excellently for sitting on the couch eating Doritos. WHAT IS THIS RUNNING NONSENSE?” But I am ignoring it and pressing onward anyway. Congrats!
Somebody should start a new Couch to 5K thread - having other people doing it with you makes you get out there and do it so you can go online and say “Finished week 3 day 2!” or whatever. There were seriously days when that was the only thing that got me out there.
OK, so despite being somewhat humid here, I finally broke down and took a long soak in hot water. God bless hot water! I feel better already.
I don’t know if I swallowed air while gasping for breath or if my new diet is affecting my digestion, but I have stomach cramps bad. Burping seems to help. With my internal background, pain in the stomach area always panics me!
But the soak did help some and we’ll see what tomorrow brings.
Congrats on the weight loss so far! I definitely recommend the couch-to-5 km program
I was convinced that I could never, ever jog, that I could walk or bicycle for miles but would never be able to run for more than a minute at a time. Running to catch the bus had me out of breath for ages. The only time I remember running a distance, it was the 800 metre race in gym class which I found torturous.
When I gained a ton of weight last year I decided I had to start jogging to lose it. I didn’t follow the couch to 5 km program, but I guess I did something similar, just increasing the distance I ran each day. For a loooong time I could only make about 20 minutes, and suddenly I started finding it easy and started increasing my daily distance all the time. About three months ago I thought that maybe I could try to train for an 8 km, and then I started running that easily and I’m now training for a half-marathon. The most amazing change I noticed is that I never get cramps anymore - along with the normal stitches in my side, I used to get these painful ones that felt like menstrual cramps and pretty much always sent me crawling home.
Good luck! (And a question for other runners here - does anyone actually feel that runner’s euphoria I always here about? The best I ever feel is a kind of elation that I’ll be done soon…)
Hell, no. Sometimes I do hit “just the right song” on my iPod, though. Right now I’m feeling the opposite, the fabled “runner’s torn tendon”. It isn’t very euphoric. Also it’s very hard to lie still for the MRI.
Not so much during, but if I skip too many days in between, I often feel weird. And right after, I feel really, really good. Not necessarily a high, but just a feeling of well being. I definitely could never stop running, I just love the way I feel.
I never felt I got that ‘runners high’ I heard so much about, but if I don’t run I get antsy.
Unfortunately I am off running for 4-6 weeks as I pulled my quad muscle a couple of weeks ago. That isn’t any fun. My fault too for pushing myself a little too hard and a little too fast.
Khadaji good luck on the running–if I recall you and I are similar age wise (almost 50) and I would also recommend the C25K program–that is what I did to get myself running. I remember the first day how difficult just the one minute run was, but now I can easily do 30 minutes at a good pace (well I used to be able to do that I should say!). What is nice about the program is it slowly moves you from one level to the next. I hurt myself cause I tried to do too much too fast and started doing intervals–if I had done the intervals more like the C25K program I think I would have avoided the pain I have now.
good luck and feel free to email me if you have any questions along the way.
I am using a technique similar to the couch25k. It isn’t the exact same thing, but close enough.
I am very surprised at how much my legs hurt today. I know that walking is different than running, but they do use some of the same muscles! Today was a walk and I did not go *nearly *as far in my morning 30 minutes as I usually do. OK, the actual difference is low, but at a walking pace, it would be.
Also there is a spot just below my stomach and above my groin where the muscles hurt that I would not have expected.
Anyway, tomorrow will be another jogging day. I hurt already just thinking about it…
Since last Tuesday I have lost 2 lbs. That is pretty typical for me - 1-2 pounds a week when I am dedicated. I should be able to sustain that. Some weeks I will even see 3 lbs, but I can count on an average of 1.5 or so.
I prefer to think of it as 10% of my goal, rather than 2lbs. It sounds like so much more!
In all my years of exercising, I was never a runner. I did rowing and other aerobic exercises, but never running. I have never experienced a high from exercising. I would be content if I just got to a point where it was a chore!
