Suggest a good beginner's running plan

In My Humble Opinion
1

I think I might try running again. (Last time, several years ago, I was actually in relatively decent shape and tried running, with one of those beginning plans - worked on it for a month, never could run a whole mile without walking. Couldn’t even come close. Eventually I could go almost a whole suburban block without walking. I am not made for fitness.)

There are a lot of beginner plans out there - I want a good one that I can actually do. I go to the gym some, with a trainer, but I’m not in good shape. (Not fat, just not in good shape.) I’ve got a good pair of running shoes and a watch. I live in a good neighborhood for running, but don’t have anybody to run with. I am going to hate this and also be very bad at it. Can you running people suggest a plan?

2

Excellent question. I am also quite interested in a new plan, since I have no motivation otherwise.

Thanks.

3

As someone who’s getting back into running after a loooong hiatus, I can relate something that worked for me.

Mainly, a lot of previous attempts I made at running failed because it just was too hard. I couldn’t go very far without getting winded, and that just made me frustrated, and I’d give up.

This time, I started on the stationary bike for a number of weeks. It was a great way to just work on getting my heart used to working for extended periods of time without the high-impact of running. Once my body was used to exercise like that I started substituting the treadmill for some or all of my biking. Now that the weather’s kind of warm I’m just running outdoors a fair amount.

4

I do cardio on an elliptical trainer at the gym - not as much as I should, but some. I learned last time I tried to run that the cardio I did in the gym had absolutely nothing to do with running. It might as well have been somebody else doing all that work, because my lungs were just not prepared for it.

5

First question: do you have to stop due to cardiovascular overload, foot/leg pain, or both?

It sounds like cardio, from your last post, so I’ll address that first. My trainer encouraged me to get a heart rate monitor, and he put me on the treadmill and used a high incline to get my heart rate right up at the high end of my range (160-165). He would have me do intervals of that, with brisk (3.5-3.8 mph) walking to recover. He would also have me do longer workouts at heart rates of 150-160. It was really hard work. I would be huffing and puffing. But over time, I got fitter. I started to be able to run, and my resting pulse rate was 68.

That was about a year ago. Since then I’ve regained the weight I lost last year, but I haven’t lost most of my cardio fitness. I’m 5’5" and 215 pounds, and I look like a great pudding, but I can run 2 miles, which I’ve never been able to do before in my life - not even as a slim teenager.

As to the second issue - if you are having any foot or leg pain, get thee to a podiatrist and see if you need orthotics - they did wonders for me!

6

You wouldn’t know it by looking at me now, but once upon a time I was actually a decent runner. The way I started up in the spring after a long winter of being a couch potato was to do what one of my coaches called LSD - Long Slow Distance. In other words, when you are first starting running, you don’t want to break any records. You want to go as slow as you need to so that you can go really far. “Really far” is however far you can get in about half an hour to forty five minutes or so. Any shorter distance/time than that, and you are working on your muscles and not your cardiovascular system, and your cardiovascular system needs the work at this point.

Biking helps (stationary or otherwise), since it is good for building up your cardiovascular system without putting so much strain on your knees and ankles, but the same rules apply, go for slow distance, not fast speed.

There are a bizillion training methods out there. You can follow any of them, as long as it basically follows the LSD rule. Don’t be trying to do anything fancy at first. Build up your cardio system first. Then work on the fancy stuff. Anything else is doomed to failure.

The “couch potato to 5k running plan” is one of the better plans I’ve come across.
http://www.coolrunning.com/engine/2/2_3/181.shtml

7

I came in here to mention the plan that **engineer_comp_geek ** suggested. I only started it last week, so I can’t really say how well it works, but my physical therapist has approved of it. My heart rate stays elevated for the whole workout, which has to be good, right?

From experience, I can also say to watch out for Runner’s Knee. It sucks. The symptom that was most obvious to me was extreme pain when walking up or down stairs and inclines. It’s why I’m in PT now. If you increase distance too fast, you will regret it.

8

ecg has some excellent suggestions. I used coolrunning’s site the first time I started running. It was super. I started running the end of October and by the beginning of December I was able to run a 5K without stopping to walk.

Your goal should be, as ecg stated, to run. Put one foot in front of the other over and over again. Speed shouldn’t even enter the scenario. You might even find people walking faster than you’ll be running. Don’t sweat it.

Also, conserve your movement; you shouldn’t be, for lack of a better word, bouncing when you run. There’s also no need for your arms to be moving too much.

Finally, I find it so much easier to run while listening to music. If you’re having trouble with not being able to run as long as you’d like to, give it a whirl.

9

I did the Cool Running Couch to 5K plan (or rather jumped in at about the middle after doing some work on the treadmill at the gym.) It worked pretty well for me! As the plan says, listen to your body and don’t be afraid to repeat a week. Everyone improves at their own pace, and there are a million factors going on in your life (illnesses, stress, nutrition) that impact your ability to train. And remember, even if you’re repeating a week, you’re still improving at a much greater pace than if your butt was home on the couch!

Another reason to listen to your bod is that if you noticed that your feet / shins / knees have begun to bugging you, don’t assume that you should just put up with it. Get yourself some new shoes, 'cause your old ones are busted! Don’t cause yourself unnecessary pain (or injury!) Another thing you can do to reduce the chance of injury is to talk to your trainer about resistance exercises to strengthen your ankles and knees.

And I second the advice to get a heart rate monitor if that’s possible. A really simple one is really all you need (though do get one with a stopwatch, you don’t have to wear a second watch.) Treat it as a measuring tool, and do not to let it dictate your workout. Check out your heart rate as you warm up, when you’re feeling good, when you’re feeling crappy and out of energy, when you’re feeling like your lungs are on fire, and as you’re cooling off. You might discover some useful patterns. Frex, I noticed that in the middle of the “aerobic” range (based on my age), I felt miserable, like I was slogging along, but if I could up my HR to the upper end or even a little over, then I started to feel great, like I could go forever. I also discovered that if I got much above a certain limit, my HR would shoot up and I would tucker out and get sick to my stomach. So take the recommended limits as a first guess, and find your own body’s favorite zone—and expect it to change as you keep training!

Anyway, nurture your hate. Feed on it. Why are you going to start running? Because you fucking hate it. Because everybody fucking hates it. But when you do it, you will be proving that you are a fucking badass. When you mention offhand that you’ve taken up running, you know what people will think? They will think, “My god, Zsofia is such a badass!” When you start reaching those milestones, running 5 minutes continually, then 10 minutes continually, then 25 minutes, you know how you will feel? I’ll tell you how you’ll feel . . . you’ll feel like you’re going to fall over and die, that’s how you feel. But then you’ll drag yourself home, and you’ll get in the shower, and you’ll finally start to feel human again, and you’ll say to yourself, “By God, I did it! I am a complete and utter badass!”

10

Here is one that my brother sent to me when he was training for a 5km run.

10 Week Beginner’s Running Program
Week # Run - Walk Ratio (20 Minute Total) Total Run Time
1 Run 1 minute, walk 2 minutes - do 6 sets, followed by running 1 minute 7 min
2 Run 1 minute, walk 1 minute - do 10 sets 10 min
3 Run 2 minutes, walk 1 minute - do 6 sets, followed by running 2 minutes 14 min
4 Run 3 minutes, walk 1 minute - do 5 sets 15 min
5 Run 4 minutes, walk 1 minute - do 4 sets 16 min
6 Run 5 minutes, walk 1 minute - do 3 sets, followed by running 2 minutes 17 min
7 Run 6 minutes, walk 1 minute - do 3 sets 18 min
8 Run 8 minutes, walk 1 minute - do 2 sets, followed by running 2 minutes 18 min
9 Run 10 minutes, walk 1 minute - do 2 sets 20 min
10 Run 20 minutes 20 min

Each week the goal is to run the same Run-Walk ratio three different days in the week.
For example, in week three we ran 2 minutes and walked 1 minute.
We did this ratio six times in a row and then ran an additional 2 minutes for a total of 14 minutes of running.

We then did this same Run-Walk ratio on two other days of the week for a total of 42 minutes of running for the week.
The 5 kilometer run seems a little unreachable at the beginning, however, we were suprised to find out that in week 7, we ran close to 3 kilometers. We are over half way there!

11

That’s the best advice I got when I first started running. I couldn’t even run a block. Then my coach told me to just keep running no matter how slow I was going. And yes, that meant I was jogging slower than others walk but I was still doing the running motion. That worked a lot better for me than the “going out too fast, can’t sustain it, drop to a walk” method. Eventually, I was able to run faster but being able to run a mile, no matter, how slow was a major boost.

12

Dumb question: I keep seeing things that say to run for x seconds and then walk for x seconds when you’re getting started. Well, if I’m focusing on running and then walking, I’m not exactly staring at a stopwatch. Any suggestions?

13

I always wore a wristwatch when I began to – I found it was not particularly hard to check in every so often to make note of how long I’d been running. Have you tried this yet? You may be surprised…

Even though many of the beginner plans emphasize running by the clock, rather than measuring distance, I personally have always enjoyed, even starting out from stock zero, measuring myself by distance. It’s easy to plot trajectories and such using Google Earth, and you’ll find it’s not very hard to estimate distances such as 50 m, 100 m, etc. Instead of using time as a measurement, one might begin to run, say, 100m, walk for 100m or 200m, and so forth, as several running guides have suggested (one is, I believe, in one of Joe Henderson’s – the runner, not the musician – books). I don’t suppose it really matters which route you go, so to speak, so long as it’s convenient to measure your progress somehow for the encouragement.

14

I didn’t use the Coolrunning plan, per se, but it was very close to what I did use. After a couple of months, I could run 2 or 3 miles. By the end of that summer, I could do 6. The next year, 9 or 10, and that’s even after I took the winter off. So, yeah, it works really well.

To add on to something Podkayne said, pay very close to attention to what your body is telling you. If your knees/ankles/whatever are bugging you, take a few days off. Go cycling or swimming instead. Hell, just sit on the couch. It’s better to take a few days off right away and feel a little lazy than mess your legs up and then have to take 3 or 4 weeks off.

I’d also recommend getting a good mp3 player. I’d probably not run as much as I do if I didn’t have good tunes. :slight_smile:

15

Try counting strides. Every time your left (or right) foot hits the ground, that’s one. Next time it hits the ground, that’s two.

Start off by alternating 10 running, 20-30 walking and then go for bigger numbers every workout.

16

When I did the couch to 5K plan, I would translate it into a list of times, for example Workout 1 is:

So I’d write:
0:00 Warmup
5:00 Jog
6:00 Walk
7:30 Jog
8:30 Walk
10:00 Jog
11:00 Walk
12:30 Jog
13:30 Walk
15:00 Jog
16:00 Walk
17:30 Jog
18:30 Walk
20:00 Jog
21:00 Walk
22:30 Jog
24:00 Walk
25:00 Cool Down

I’d write it all really tiny and tape it to my watchband. I’d start the stopwatch on my watch when I started my warmup, and just follow the list.

(Don’t worry, as the integrals get longer, the list will get shorter.)

I have heard the “just keep running” advice from several people, but it would not have worked for me. I was (and still feel like) a ridiculously slow runner, but at the beginning, I would always reach a point were I just could not keep “running,” no matter how slowly I was going through the motions. I had to stop and walk to let my heart rate recover. If the “just keep running” thing doesn’t work for you, don’t worry about it, and do walking intervals. As long as you keep getting your butt out there on the street, you will improve your endurance!

17

A few years ago I tried the USA Fit program and even though I didn’t finish it I ended up in the best shape of my life. They have affiliates all over the place.

18

learn to stretch both muscle groups in your calf; with the knee straight, and slightly bent, before you run.

Patience

“I’m going to hate this and be vary bad at it.”

Why? There are a million ways to fitness, are you sure there isn’t one you’ll hate less? For example I find it very hard to complete anything on a stationary bike or treadmill, and I find yoga boring, but a mountain bike ride, or hiking in the hills is good, just a thought,
Larry

19

There’s some evidence to suggest that HIIT (high intensity interval training) can increase one’s ability to endure, and by extension the strength of one’s cardiovascular system, provided one is not likely to perish because of a heart attack or some such. There are many options available, as noted above, and running is just one of them.

It’s not likely one will succeed at even the most modest of plans if one doesn’t truly enjoy the act of running. I’m glad I was able to work up to running 5K (the first HUGE milestone was running a mile), for the self-confidence, and enjoyed honing my times and technique for a while after the mark, but these days I’d rather do HIIT on a stationary bike and be done in about 15 minutes total before hitting the weights, which is something I personally enjoy (it seems so Kathy Acker to me, so I’m really into it, but that’s just me).

20

I love to run, and I’m pretty good at it, so perhaps I’m off base, but here are my suggestions.

If you can afford a trainer, you can afford a heart rate monitor. I believe they all have a nice feature that allows you to enter time intervals. So, if you can run for 30 seconds, set it to chime every 30 seconds. Run every other interval, walk in between.

There is nothing wrong with occassionally stopping and catching your breath.

You might be better off on a treadmill at your gym. You can hop on and off those, and best yet, if you absolutely can’t go any further, you don’t have to get back. (When the weather sucks, I do my speed intervals on a treadmill. I run a quarter mile, then hop off for a quarter. I’m not the most agile of athletes, so if I can do it, you can.) Set the treadmill for 1% or 1.5% to best simulate running outdoors. When you can run an entire mile, go outside.

Take a dog. (It doesn’t have to be your own.) No running partner gets you going like a dog. They live for it. (Even my almost 16 year old boxer begs to go with me, and her digestive track can’t handle even 1 mile.) If, on those days you just want to play spud, you can turn down a dog, you have a harder heart than I.