Couch to 5K

August 10, 2009  |  Active  |  , , ,

It’s no secret that over the past few years, I have put on weight. It all started when I moved to Windsor and started to work in an office that brought in pasta lunches almost daily in an effort to keep us at our desks working. It’s been 5 years since I’ve left that job, and still I continue to put on weight. Now, I don’t live an active lifestyle at all, the most fitness I get is running after the kids.

It came to a shock to me that when we were completing our physical for life insurance that when they weighed me, I was 200lbs. Never in my life would I think that I would be pushing 2 bills. But years of plain laziness has caught up with me.

Niagara Falls - 2001

Me in 2000 (not that I ever want to get this skinny again)

img_3405

Me Now (weight:gain :: hair :loss)

So, now I’ve decided to make a change, and start getting active, for myself, my wife and my kids. I don’t want to be 40 years old and out of breath keeping up with them.

Today, I did my first installment in the “Couch to 5K” program. C25K, is a program that’s been designed to get just about anyone from the couch to running 5 kilometers or 30 minutes in just 9 weeks.

After my first run, all I can say is wow, I am out of shape.  Going into this i was thinking “How hard can it be to run for 60 seconds?” Boy was I wrong.  At the end of the 30 mins, I was dying around the 45 second mark of the running portion, and really had to push to complete.

Being a tech geek, I’ve armed myself with the following tools:

Nike+ iPod sensor + iPhone 3GS.
I don’t have a pair of Nike+ compatible shoes, or the extra $ right now to buy any, so after some research.  I completed this modification to fit the Nike+ sensor to my Adidas shoes:

img_0855

I undid all of the laces and cut a little piece of two sided fabric tape to the bottom of the sensor and attached it to the tongue, then redid the laces up overtop of the sensor.  In reading about modding the sensor this way, it said that it was important the the sensor be as stable as possible to keep up accuracy.

I’ve been using the Nike+iPod application on my iPhone 3GS to keep up my progress.  My NikePlus profile page is here:

http://my.nike.com/eplatero

Couch to 5K iPhone App: iTunes Link

I will try and keep this up after every week to update my progress.


  • benjohnbarnes
    Hi Edward,

    :-) You sound like me a few weeks ago! Actually, a few months ago, because I lapsed and started again and got injured and started again and … this morning I did the first run of week 5. I'm in a slight dread about Monday when I'm supposed to do that first 20 minutes without a walk monster, but maybe it'll just be fine when I try it!

    Here are a couple of other iPhone applications for following the c25k plan that might interest you:

    http://splendid-things.co.uk/getrunning
    http://felttip.com/c25k/

    The first of those two is developed by myself with the support of some other smashing people. The big things setting it apart are that:

    ● it's got hundreds of really nicely recorded prompts and cues to encourage you on,
    ● it's got a lovely log of your runs that includes the dates for future runs.
    ● it looks really nice.
    ● it's got a rather gorgeous "clock" for each run.
    ● it works properly when your phone sleeps or is locked, and works with or without iPhone music playing in the background.

    Is the Windsor you mention is in the UK? Beautiful place, but that probably means you don't use the American iTunes store, so if I give you a promo code for a free copy of Get Running, it wont be any use for you (they're US iTunes store only). Just in case you do use the US store, here're some promo codes for it:

    NKH4TNEENMY7
    XLEYR6PFNL3X
    KYLAE7H9F63M
    AYFLTNFLXWE9
    PNL6LH9RRKAN

    Do you know there's a #c25k tag on twitter, and a couch to 5k group on facebook, by the way? Also, the website runnersworld.com has a beginner forum and is loaded with really good advice.

    Good luck!
    Benjohn
  • ddame
    Awesome job Ed. I share your experience. Last thanksgiving I stepped on the scale and it almost hit 190! I was like, "Damn the scale must be off"...the problem was I could not get 'off' my butt. I quit eating doritos nightly, ditched the diet pop, and started riding my bike and doing abs. I'm at a plateu at 145-150...but I'm happy just being fit.

    Keep it up buddy...I'm rooting for you.
  • Rob
    You should really try out the Livestrong iPhone app to track your daily caloric intake. It's quite eye opening when you realize it's very easy to consume double the daily recommended calories.

    I use it for 2 months a little while back and lost 15 pounds just by chaning my diet. A few months have passed and I gained a little back, but I started last week for another round.
  • Downloaded it this morning.
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