Hi all. I've just started running, and since there's a cycling thread that's doing well, I figured I'd start a running one and see if anyone else on bit runs. I'm using the Couch to 5K plan which seems so popular. It's going well so far, made it through the first week, which as someone recovering from years of being physically unable to exercise (ill health) seems pretty cool. I need to get some shoes though. Any other runners know how much you really have to spend on your first pair of running shoes?
I used to run about 3 mile everyday before school and do a 5 mile charity run once a year. Then I hit college found beer, women and stopped. Then I couldn't be bothered to run due to silly work hours and spending time with the kids. Round about the middle of June I bought a new pair of Asics with the intention of getting back into running, I've ran once since. I will get back into running as soon as i get my cast off (snapped my achilles playing football), if anyone here has any advice for coming back from a snapped achilles please share.
Thanks specofdust the couch to 5k is exactly the sort of thing I need. I used to run about 1.5 miles 3-4 days inserted between 2 hour sessions at the gym but I have slowly let it slide and have become fat and lazy. I can see me following through with this as I work much better with a gradual plan to follow. Gonna get this started on monday.
Speaking as someone who is extremely unfit, I've so far found it a manageable plan. The only problem I had was heavy rain putting me off. On the first day of week 1, I could barely complete the run, on the third session (today) I found it quite managable, and shoved in a couple of extra run/walk intervals just to raise the bar for myself a bit. If I can do this, anyone can.
For shoes: You'll find some useful guides here. As to cost, it varies on the distance you want to cover. Really expensive shoes are for the elite who cover a lot of km a week. If you're running 10-20km a week, £20-30 will be enough to buy what you need. YMMV, but by following a guide and working out what you need, you'll be able to find a pair of comfortable shoes without spending a fortune I have a pair of Asics Kanbarra which I bought in the States for $20. I used to run 20-30km a week, as cross training for other sports. Would definitely recommend a 5-10km run as an aerobic fitness exercise. It's quite flexible as well: at low intensities/longer distances, it's a great way to lose fat. At higher intensities/shorter distances, you can get away with treating it as UT2 (140-150BPM) which is excellent cardio, although it would be more advisable to do hill training/shorter intervals for that. It also vastly improves your anaerobic threshold. The trick is to find a really good route. Check out mapmyrun.com if you haven't already, it's excellent. If you're stuck for where to run check out some of the routes people have already mapped out near where you live. Also, running a flat 10km can get boring (45 mins of constant speed = epic bore), so a good way to spice it up is chunk in a couple of hills. Unfortunately if you live in Cambridge which is essentially completely flat then you're pretty much screwed Damaged my iliotibial band a while back which has put a cap on distance recently. Fortunately, college provides lots of awesome ergs in the gym so I've switched to erging more or less. One of my mates in the CULRC has clocked up almost 1 million metres on the erg in 2 years - I better not let him get too much of a head start, right?
Ergs are torture machines. I use to row for crew (well I was the coxswain but I still had to do the workouts) so I have a fiery hate of them. between 24 guys, in 12hrs we did over 548,000m
Swimming>Running. Well in terms of losing weight though, running is better, but as for endurance, swimming makes you a beast.
That depends on what sort of running. I may have only just started, but I'm quite aware of hyper-marathons. Anyone that can run 12 hour stretches day after day, to me, seems to have a fair bit of endurance.
Lol, bit harsh on the cox? Maybe our ones are just lazy ^_^ Oh boy, sure is intense alright. The last 25% in a high tempo interval kills like nothing else. 2km and 5km tests in particular are simply the worst, one of my mates who is thinking of trialling for the uni heavyweight squad this year threw up after a 2k. Apparently, it's not uncommon 0_o Nice work on the 548k, that's endurance! That's about 20km/person isn't it? A while back, couple of my boatie mates did a full marathon erg on the concept2 rowers for a bet lmao. They must have been in good shape too, took them just over 3 hours.
eh just a little harsh, we had the standard 2k tests but instead of 5k we had 6k tests. 6k tests are god awful things. one day our coach was conditioning us for Head of the Hooch race in Tennessee by having us do 3 6k tests. Nothing like doing those in a portable room with no A/C in 100*F weather with 20 other guys cranking away at it. Our team went through about a half-gallon to a full gallon of water each land practice. Water practices on the other hand were a bunch of fun for me I have thought about continuing crew and had a couple colleges interested in me as a coxswain but as a Mechanical Engineering major, sports kind of over stepped my time that would be used up by studying and work.
