Couch to 5k Addendum

[brin_bellway]

So far, it hasn't been pleasant per se, but it has felt...self-actualising? Like, a satisfying sense of "yes, this is exactly the sort of thing I would do, and I feel more fully myself having done it". Goals and actions coming into alignment.

Which is not to say distractions aren't also helpful, to give me more things to focus on in the moment other than how much my legs ache. I was just listening to music the first few weeks, but on my last run I experimented with video, since Mom's desktop is right next to the treadmill. She tilted her screen so we could both see it and showed me some Hawaiian dancers and some Disney clips. I think it's a promising technique.

Tonight will be the first run with no breaks in the middle: twenty straight minutes. Wish me luck.

Comments

good luck! (since you asked for some)

[oligopsony]

I started an exercise habit with Couch to 5K and it was extremely helpful. Like the boiling frog analogy, except not fake, and also a good thing, probably.

I have not found that exercise ever comes to feel especially good. I have, however, found that it now feels great after exercising.

Because I don't like actually exercising while I'm doing it, I wasn't really able to stick to it until I discovered podcasts. I need these to be in the sweet spot as far as cognitive load - too little and it doesn't distract me enough, too much and exercise-me can't appreciate it. Peter Adamson and classic "exercise music" both end up boring, just in opposite ways; Chapo Trap House is just right.

Lots of people seem to differ from me though - "runners high," classic exercise music, etc - so I think my actual point here is that you'll experiment and find what's motivating/helpful for you, hopefully!

Re: good luck! (since you asked for some)

[brin_bellway]

Like the boiling frog analogy, except not fake, and also a good thing, probably.

It really does get easier: I think the most unpleasant session was actually my first, where I felt a bit nauseated by the end. The second worst was the time my shoelace came untied at the end of the last running segment, forcing me to go right from several minutes of running to a dead stop. Learned the hard way why they include cooldown walks.

---

I think my actual point here is that you'll experiment and find what's motivating/helpful for you, hopefully!

I've definitely been refining my technique over the weeks. It took me a couple sessions to settle on doing 2.5mph for walking and 3.5mph for running, my first session I tried to use some old slip-ons that turned out to be lumpy because they were literally full of rocks, the next few sessions I used some old hiking boots that were slightly less lumpy, then some sneakers fresh from the thrift store whose laces came undone every 10 - 20 minutes or so. After hitting on the idea of tying the sneakers and then wrapping a small scrunchie around each bow, my running-shoe situation seems to be stable now. Also I've started changing into a T-shirt: I wear sweatshirts for hanging out at home in the wintertime, but those don't let me dump heat fast enough for this.

(I didn't want to use the current slip-ons because they don't have a lot of padding and don't really have room for gel inserts; I didn't want to use the current hiking boots (my primary shoes) partly because I didn't want to wear them out faster and partly because the shoes are dirty, and I knew myself well enough to know it'd be easier to overcome inertia and go start a session if every object involved in doing so was clean. Fewer things to keep track of that way.)

It's a bit hard to hear things over the sound of the treadmill, especially at higher speeds, so I haven't tried podcasts because I figured I'd miss too much of what they were saying. Which is a bit of a shame, admittedly: I haven't had many opportunities for my usual podcast-listening activities lately (walks and certain forms of video-game grinding), and they're piling up. I hope I don't run out of room in my microSD card: I've been cutting the files down to 96kbps, and that helps but only so much. (64kbps noticeably degraded the sound quality.)

---

Partway through drafting this post, I did the twenty-minute run.

I've been finding I like having instructions rather than trying to figure out myself how much I should do when. Left to my own devices I might have stopped after 4 or 5 minutes when I really started to feel tired, but I actually could do 20. In fact, the 14th minute was easier than the 4th, because I'd gotten more settled into the pattern.

I think next time I will try turning the ceiling fan on to help me dissipate more heat.