Thursday, October 30, 2014

Hospital Bed to 5K: C25K -> W1D1

Over the weekend, my wife signed me up for my first post-surgical 5K!  It will be a virtual run that I have to complete before the end of November.  Needless to say, this stimulus has lit a fire under my butt to speed up recovery.

On Monday 10/27, my wife suggested that we start the C25K training program.  C25K stands for Couch to 5K.  There are many programs available but the one I linked to is the one that I've used.  Cool Running also has training programs for all of the other distances that I've run, up to and including a Marathon (I ran the 2011 Monumental Marathon).  They also have the training programs divided into beginner, intermediate, and advanced.

 I found that these workouts have been causing the muscles in my lower leg to hurt a great deal.  I suspect these are all the small / stabilizer muscles that keeps you from falling over.  I plan to continue running on a paved surface until the running no longer causes pain in the muscles of my lower leg.  Then I'll transition to a soft surface to get those muscles some extra exercise.

After this work out my wife and I got massages.  This helped and hurt.  My sharp muscle pains (which included my IT band) were replaced by dull muscle pains.  IT band problems are common in runners, yet my IT band problems began before I started moving and moving seemed to help them get better.  The massage helped even more.

If you have recently had surgery and want to start or restart your training, you must first get permission from your surgeon.  I also highly recommend walking, riding a bike, or using an elliptical to see how well you tolerate the higher levels of activity before you start running.  Running is going to cause everything to jostle around and might be very uncomfortable.  If it is, let pain be your guide and stick with walking for another week before you try again.


Summary:
All W1 workouts are identical:
  • 5 min brisk walking warm-up
  • Stretch
  • 8x [60 sec run + 90 sec walk] (20 minutes)
  • 5 min brisk walking cool-down
  • Stretch


2.0 miles in 30.5 min (I believe the marked 2.0 miles on this trail is actually 2.2 miles).

Unfortunately, my heart rate monitor battery is dead and my data recorder is broken.  I'm working to fix this but until I do, I will only be able to guess my heart rates.

Est max heart rate 155 bpm, estimated average heart rate 145 bpm.

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