Training Program

I am a pretty busy person already but this is something I really want to do so I've managed to squeeze training into my schedule. I've taken the basic 10 week program from Runners World and have adapted it to suit myself. It seemed like a good place to start since I'm so unfit.

I'll be running on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursday and Sundays. With my long run being on Sunday morning. I tried working it out so I didn't have three consecutive days but unfortunately I couldn't. I'm riding on Monday, Tuesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I swim on Wednesday and Friday. Some of the running sessions will be held at the gym since it means I can do a bit of cross training while I'm there. But I enjoy running outdoors rather then being in a gym so I won't be doing that too often.

This is my first week, weekday running program:

5 mins: Warm up by walking
2 mins: Run
4 mins: Walk
2 mins: Run
4 mins: Walk
2 mins: Run
4 mins: Walk
2 mins: Run
4 mins: Walk
2 mins: Run
5 mins: Cool down by walking

So the weekday runs will be about 40mins. For the Sunday run I'm going to be doing a 5k run/walk around my house so I'm not sure how long that will take me as of now.

So thats it. Lets see how it goes.

Hitting the pavement.

This is it.

The start.

The start of my journey to running in the Adidas Auckland Half Marathon which is held in November 08. Thats right. I'm going to run in a half marathon.

Now this is a huge goal for me.
I'm only 18 but I haven't run for fitness or otherwise in years. I had problems when I was in my early teens with my knees dislocating, my quads weren't holding my knees in place so I had to stop all sports for a while. I worked and worked and did all the exercises my physio gave me so I could strengthen them. Once they were up to par with normal teens my age I started playing netball and took up horse riding. Although fitness is paramount for both these sports I never did long runs. I only remember one period in that time when I was running regulary (and I can tell you know I've never felt better).

Now all I do is ride. I ride competitively but since stopping netball by fitness has decreased terribly. Riding is a good form of fitness but unless I'm riding a few hours a day, its not the level of fitness I need so I can do well in a competition. And so I started running.

Its been a huge release. I only started last week but I'm loving it. I also can only run for about 8mins at a time without getting tired. I have a lot of work to do. I've decided I want to race.

I want to be realistic about this. I'm not going to push myself into a race when I'm not ready. But the good news is the first races in the Run Auckland series are in March. I think I can safely say I will be able to run in the 10km race then, but I'll re-evaluate as I go on.

So this is it. This is my journey.

Coming up: My training program, its a bit of a mission to fit running around riding but you'll see what I've come up with.