If you haven’t yet, please check out my previous post here, where I discuss my 3 months of PT and finally getting cleared to run! 🥳

Last Saturday (5/25) I started week 1 of the couch to 5k (C25k) training. Each week consists of 3 workouts.

Week 1 they were all the same:

• Brisk 5 minute walk to warm-up
• Repeat 8 times: 60 seconds run and 90 seconds walk
• I added 5 minutes of walking to cool-down

This was a workout totaling 25 minutes with 8 total minutes of running. It might not seem like much but it was huge to me …. especially when I didn’t have any foot pain after!

I think I had gotten so used to having pain, feeling pain, it is really strange not having any!

And, I also felt very strong in my core. I feel like I’m using the muscles I’m supposed to while running.

Yes, it’d be easy to look at this plan, which takes 9 weeks to build up to 30 minutes of running, think of how good I feel, and skip over several weeks, to build up my time running faster. However, I am committed to sticking with this plan and building slower.

I’m working on the long-game as they call it!

Making sure I am not falling back into my “pattern,” as my PT calls it. And that I maintain form and strength. In the long run (haha, pun intended!) this will no doubt serve me, and my body, best.

As other runners know, it sucks to be injured. Period.

It sucked taking 3 months to get to the point where I could run again. Even if it’s just been a whole 8 minutes. Those 8 minutes mean more to me than one could imagine.

I just have to remember that every minute will build and help me in the long-term to reach my goals.

I can’t lie that it is hard not wanting to start thinking about races and making plans.

For now I’ll take it minute by minute … to keep running happy 😊