Steve: Dinner at the Daughter’s & My Couch to 5K Hobble

Tonight we went to my daughter’s dorm room for dinner. It was the first time she has had us over and she cooked for us! I was very touched that she was very concerned with my diet when deciding what to make and adjusted the meal around that… we had chicken tacos and burritos which were very good.

The adjustments she made were: Chicken instead of beef, fat free refried beans, low fat sour cream.. she even cooked me my very own fried potatoes fried in only a little butter 🙂  I was very touched and happy that she was so thoughtful.  The best part of the evening was when she showed us that she had Hidden Valley Fat Free Ranch in the fridge… that was a huge step for her to take in buying the fat free ranch… something she had been against for so long… then she showed us the low fat cottage cheese that she had… and we discussed the yoga DVD workouts she has been doing… to me it shows how much she is growing as a person and working toward improving her health. I was very happy!

Yesterday was day 4 of my new goals and all went well… with the exception of my first attempt of the couch to 5K workout (many sites around about this, but I downloaded the podcasts from www.kissmyblackass.org since the music was pretty good) … it sounded so simple… 30 minutes.. Warm-up walk for 5 minutes then run for 60 second… just 60 seconds.. then recover with a 90 second brisk walk… repeat the 60 second run and the 90 second walk for a total of eight 60 second runs… finish with a 5 minute cool down walk… done.

I know I am in horrible shape, but I can do 10 miles on the exercise bike on level 4 in 30 minutes, surely I can do this workout…

I was a perfect evening… just dark and wonderful outside.. the 5 minute walk was okay.. I kept the pace up to a just uncomfortable level, then came the first run… did a nice easy jog… my legs were hurting already. The 60 seconds went by and I did the first 90 second recovery walk.. that 90 seconds really went by fast… second run/jog and my shins started aching.. another 90 seconds that seemed like 20 and back to the 60 second run… when the 4th run came up I decided that I would skip one run and just keep up the brisk walk… then the 5th one came and I again needed to just walk… as well as the 6th and 7th runs… I was pushing myself as best I could and when the final run came I ran… as best as I could for the 60 seconds… then the final 5 minute walk was cut short by about 3 minutes… Very disappointing to me that I couldn’t do this yet.. only did half of the running… but it did give me a good goal to work on… the biggest problem for me was the pain in my feet and shins while I was running… I an reevaluating the goal of doing this twice per week and am considering doing it on the elliptical 2-3 times per week instead.

So now I am taking my aching body (I am really sore from the walk/run) and going to ride the exercise bike for 30 minute to get my cardio in.