So my tendinitis has been really slow to heal. I considered a number of ways to stay in shape while I wait to get better. I thought about buying a Concept 2 rowing machine. I know many kettlebell sport athletes use the Concept 2 for general physical preparedness training (GPP), and there has been some success by competitive rowers when they try kettlebell sport. Then a few weeks ago I stumbled across this running program. Known as "The couch to 5k running program", it's a common sense program designed to ease adults who aren't exercising into running a 5k race in 8 weeks.
Running is a cross-training mainstay for GS athletes. There are a lot of pluses to running. It's low cost, and can be done almost anywhere. It's such a popular sport that there are countless online resources available on training, mapping and measuring running routes, and convenient race calendars to plan your events. Most people in North America live within a short drive of several 5K races every weekend.
I started the program on April 24, following it pretty closely. I didn't over-do it, because for the first month my nine-year-old son ran with me. We had fun spending that time together, although after a month he was ready to play and be a nine-year-old boy again. On the days I didn't run, I continued to jump rope and do one armed swings with a kettlebell.
Once my son stopped running with me, I cranked up the intensity and went beyond the couch program. Lately I've been running for about 25 minutes (about 2.5 to 3 miles) or so, with a short warm up and cool down. I run in my neighborhood, which is very, very hilly, so the workout is pretty intense (A neighbor of mine grew up in the mountains of West Virginia, and he says its harder to run in our neighborhood than anywhere he ran growing up).
Competition motivates better than anything, so I plan to run my first race on July 4th, if not sooner.
In the meantime, I'll share a photo of my running partner for the first month of the program. In it I am holding a picture I drew of a quetzalcoatlus (his favorite prehistoric creature) for his birthday. I drew the picture right after breakfast. Both of us still had bed-head. :)
