Post Punk Kitchen Forum

so my aunt has recently gone crazy and decided she wanted to do a triathalon and has been training like a crazy person.
then one day i got an email from an animal shelter where i adopted one of my dogs about there annual 5k AND FOR SOME REASON I OFFERED TO MY AUNT THAT I WOULD DO IT WITH HER IF SHE WANTED TO DO IT. AHHHHHHHHH!!!!

im NOT a runner. im overweight and still recovering my severe sleep apnea and major surgery. the surgery was 10 months ago so im more on the recovered side than recovering but the moral of the story is that im still sort of getting back into the swing of things and have more weight to lose.

i go to the gym usually 3x a week and i do an hour and a half yoga class on saturdays plus walk/jog my dogs everyday so im not completely out of shape but im kinda freakin out at the thought.

i looked over the couch to 5k thread a bit. i guess i just need to get crackin.

im trying to draw inspiration from my dog that i adopted from the shelter that is doing the run but i dunno. something about him is not inspiring me to exercise ;-)

Your aunt is not crazy! Triathlon is an awesome, challenging sport that I hated with the fire of 1,000 suns the first time out, but have come to love. So, there's that.

Also, you can do a 5k! You work out regularly; you got this. The worst that happens is that you walk some of it. No one will judge you for that! How long do you have to get ready for it?

i believe its 10/23 so about two months!!

since its for charity (and not like some hard core race) i can totally walk parts of it in fact the email they sent out says walkers are welcome. i more want to make myself do it to see if i can.

my aunt is like crazy into this triatholon stuff now. she does her first mini one in a couple weeks. i keep telling her she needs to have her head checked. hahahaa. she is trying to convert me.

so far its me (i will have just turned 34), my aunt (51) and my mom (61) so i cant let them beat me!!!

plus it will be exactly a year and a couple weeks since i had major surgery that basically saved my life and turned my health completely around so it will be a nice cap to a year long recovery. im already thinking of making a tank top to run in that says "VEGAN POWER" on the back :-D

10/23! No problem! Seriously, it sounds like you have a decent base of fitness to build from. Find a program that makes sense to you and start working on it.

If you don't have good running shoes, make that your first order of business. A good running store will have you run on a treadmill and analyze your gait; they should also let you bring back any shoes that aren't doing it for you. I can't stress this enough. I just started running (like, for the first time ever in my life) in February. I always thought that shin splints were a given, which is why I'd always given up on running before I ever really got started. When I started, in an old pair of Nikes that I bought without a professional fitting, sure enough I had shin pain, and knee pain to boot. When I got fitted into the right pair of shoes it made all the difference and I've been running pain-free since then.

Edit: I have just signed up for my first half marathon (good god... I couldn't run a half mile when this year started!) and I want to make a shirt that says, "Powered by Tofu" for it.

"Powered By Tofu" I LOVE IT!

ill have to invest in new sneakers i have a couple pairs of good walking sneakers but no running sneakers. i already have bad knees so maybe good shoes will help me from completely destroying them

You can absolutely do this! Good luck!

thank you! :-D

And I want to say that you're welcome in any race! Heck, even the Chicago half marathon, which draws pros from around the world, also has folks who walk-run or power-walk the race. Every race I've ever heard of is for charity. I hear it didn't used to be like this, say, back in the 80s, but then, little by little, running became an everyman sport, something that weekend warriors and folks just living a healthy lifestyle could participate in. So, don't ever feel too intimidated to enter a "race." As a middle-of-the-packer, I look at it more as a race against myself. Races are so much fun! They're everything I love about running on Chicago's lakefront trail (inspiring fit folks, mostly!) times a million! You will have so. much. fun. I bet you'll catch the running bug! :) Kick back and enjoy. You have plenty of time to prepare :)

Also, when I need some inspiration, I read fitness blogs, like http://www.sweatonceaday.com/ or http://fitnessista.com/ :)

And your dog is such a cutie petutie!

You can definitely do it! I hated running and thought I could never do it when my sister made me sign up for a 5k. Two years later, I'm still a regular runner! Just take it slow and steady and you'll be fine.

You can totally do it!! I finished c25k earlier this summer. When I started it, I honestly didn't think I would ever be able to complete it - I was just dying after the 90s jogs and I couldn't ever see how I would get past that point. As you probably know since you checked out the thread, in c25k you basically do the same run/jog cycle 3x per week, then move on to a slightly more challenging run/jog combo. Every time I moved up a week I found it really hard and I was sure that I'd need to go down a level or repeat the week, but by the third run I always found that it had somehow gotten do-able. By the end of the program something had just clicked and now it ain't no thang for me to run for an hour (which is closer to 10k!). So if you start now, you can definitely, definitely get there :) Good luck and have fun!!

You were thinking it was time to rock a 5k!

I've signed up for one too... it's on Sunday!

EEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!