Runnin', runnin'

I’ve blogged before about taking up running. Like here. And here. And then I decided to do the MS150 and traded the running shoes for biking shoes. Fast forward 3 years and we’ve moved to Austin. So most recently here.

Once the weather got consistently warm I started really running. Heading out to the Town Lake trail 3x a week and trying to increase how far I could run. I got up to .75 miles without stopping to walk. If I wasn’t doing that, I’d just run a short half mile in my neighborhood. Not much, but at least it was something.

And then my ankles started hurting. Bad. And swelling up in the afternoons even when I wasn’t running. I decided that I probably shouldn’t run in these. They were fine for working at Apple. Not fine for running; you apparently can’t run in sneakers. I took a week off.

Then we had houseguests over Memorial Day weekend. So we drove down to the outlets in San Marcos and went to the Nike outlet. I picked up a pair of Nike running shoes that were Nike+ compatible. I didn’t have the Nike+ sensor, but I had an iPhone and the app is already on there.

On Wednesday (I think?) it poured down rain, so I couldn’t run and instead I went to the Apple store and got my sensor.

I was ready! I played around on the Nike+ website and created my account and decided to attempt the 12-week training for a 5k. I’ve walked a 5k, how hard can it be to run it? But then I read the description and it’s for runners who already run 12-15 miles a week. And it starts with a 3-mile run. Yeaaaahhhhhhhh, no.

But I felt like the Walk to Run (their most basic easiest beginner “Coach” program) was too easy. Walk 5 minutes, run 1 minute? I’ve been running half miles!

So on Friday I got my first chance to use my shoes and the sensor. I went “running” with a friend of mine who runs 3 miles a few times a week. But I was so out of breath it was terrible. We ended up basically walking 2 miles. My feet hurt like crazy. I was zonked. And it was then that I decided to do the Walk to Run program. After all, I had a new pair of shoes, shouldn’t I break them in?

So yes. And I’m impressed.

The goal of this program is to get me up to running 25 minutes. This is week 1. I’m supposed to alternate walking 15 minutes one day with the thing you see in the pic, the walk 5 min, run 1, repeat, walk 5. That is supposedly .62 miles. But I guess because I have long legs it’s 1.13 miles? And obviously I missed Thursday, but thank god this program doesn’t program in guilt. It’s like, “Okay, so you didn’t run Thursday’s run. Now you can run Friday’s.”

So when you click on one of those runs, you get this chart.

This was my run today. Walk 15 minutes, run 1, walk 2. When I get home and sync it up, I get to log in and rate the run. How did I feel, how was the weather, what was the terrain (road, trail, track, treadmill)? So far all of my runs have felt awesome. But DUH of course you feel awesome when you only run one minute. We’ll see how I feel in 5 weeks when I’m walking 4 minutes, running 10.

After a few days of running last week, I ended my workout and got a little message over my headphones from Lance Armstrong saying congrats on my new best mile time. I was like, “Oh, okay.” And when I logged in to Nike+ I got a video recording from someone who is most likely an athlete telling me she knows fast and I am fast.

Yes, a 15’30″ mile is ZOOMING. Actually I calibrated my sensor today and I have a 16’24″ mile when walking and 9’18″ running mile.

Anyway, I do have a few complaints with this program:

1. The iPhone app and the website aren’t synced very well. The Walk to Run program isn’t on the app. I have to log in, see what the next workout is, and set my app to “timed” and then use a watch (or the clock) to know when to walk/run. SERIOUSLY?? How do these not talk to each other or even use the same programs??

2. I used to run with my Shuffle. With my running playlist on shuffle. So I created a running playlist on my iPhone. But there is no way to make it shuffle!! So every time I run with that playlist, it starts on the same song. What? COME ON!!

Anyway, all this to say that I AM VISUAL AND I LOVE CHARTS! YAY CHARTS! And that I’ve run/walked 6 out of the last 8 days.

12 weeks? We shall see. Also, this was not sponsored by Nike.