Yesterday I completed Week 2 of the Couch to 5K running program. Week 2 consisted of the following repitition; Run for 90 seconds, then walk for 2 minutes. The extra thirty seconds per run took its toll on me by the end of each session. I have also aggravated a knee injury that has slowed my pace down. Right now I have been running through the discomfort, and hope that it is just muscles waking up from such long down time.
I have been extremely pleased with the RunKeeper Pro app for the iPhone (iTunes Link) and also with the Runkeeper community as my blog post of week 1 was added to their facebook page, and I received some great words of encouragement from others further along in the program. My suggestion to the people at RunKeeper would be to build the Couch25K program into the app given it’s current popularity. I do have Nike+, but I only rely on it for history and setting my goals on the Nike+ website.
Programming Week 2 into Runkeeper Pro
Here is the breakdown of my week:
Starting weight: 198lbs
Ending weight: 191.6lbs
KMs run: 10.6KM
Fastest KM: 9:03 (on my last run with a very sore knee)
Couch to 5K – Week 2, Day 1:
First day of week 2, felt great, the extra 30 seconds added to the running portion took it’s toll on the last segment, but felt pretty good.
Couch to 5K – Week 2, Day 2:
Achieved my fastest time. The pain in my knee started about the half way point. Had to stop 30 seconds into the last running segment.
Couch to 5K – Week 2, Day 3:
Ran in some major discomfort, but still managed to make my best time so far. Almost got hit by a guy on a bike coming up behind me.
After the week being complete, I am very pleased with my results, the program is working for me as it is slowly getting me up to the 5K mark.
Tracking my daily weight with WeightBot
As far as the weight loss goes, I’m pretty satisfied with the results as well. I have really made a very conscious effort to be aware of the calorie content of the foods that I am eating, and not giving into temptation and eating the wrong things. I’ve been weighing myself daily and entering the results into WeightBot (iTunes link) on my iPhone. WeightBot is great for me because of my results oriented nature, I get to map the progress towards the end goal.
Tracking daily calorie intake with LiveStrong
I’ve also been using the LiveStrong Calorie Tracker (iTunes). It just reminds me to watch what I eat, and it helps me make decisions on the best choices when I am away from home. My Livestrong Profile is here.
This last App is a total geeky way to track a simple thing, but I have also been using “8 Glasses’ to keep make sure that I am drinking enough water.
Next week is quite a significant boost the the C25K program, I look forward to the challenge.
This past Saturday, I completed Week 1 of the Couch to 5K running program. The week started out very rough but ended nicely and left me feeling good about accomplishing something towards better health.
I blogged after my first day (read post) and a couple of things have changed since the post. I am not using the Couch25K iPhone app anymore, as I have discovered RunKeeper. Runkeeper is like Nike+ but more enhanced with the geeky tech goodness that I like. I have programmed the C25K program into Runkeeper, so now I don’t have much use for the C25k app anymore, only to track my progress.
I’ve also been using the LiveStrong Calorie Tracker (iTunes Link) to track my daily eating habits, and weightbot to log my weekly weigh ins.
Here is the breakdown of my week:
Starting weight: ?? (Forgot to weigh in)
Ending weight: 198lbs
Couch 2 5k Week 1 Day 1:
No tracking data available as I wasn’t using Runkeeper pro yet. During my first run, I thought I was going to die. I was really struggling to get through the running portion after 10 minutes. Around the 25 min mark, I literally wanted to die. For the next 2 days, I hobbled around the house like an 80 yr old man because my legs were so sore.
Couch 2 5k Week 1 Day 2:
Had to put this off for 1 day to recoup from my first run. I didn’t have total downtime as I did a 3K walk with Tracey a day before this run. No major problems, was getting winded around the 20 min mark.
Couch 2 5k Week 1 Day 3:
I really feel that I accomplished something by starting, I know that it is the first week, but I’ve been lazy for so long, it feels good to start something.
It may seem overkill that I’m blogging/tweeting my progress on this, but I figure that if I put it out there, then I’m responsible for following up.
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.
Me in 2000 (not that I ever want to get this skinny again)
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:
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:
Couch to 5K iPhone App: iTunes Link
I will try and keep this up after every week to update my progress.
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