Thank you all for your continued support. I appreciate it.

Back to physical therapy tomorrow.

uh that SUX. but keep your chin elevated... and your knee higher

Kitten, I ran my 2 miles this morning just for you. And PT is not a bad thing. My therapists are very good at detecting an issue and helping you correct it within the life style that you have/want. If it makes you feel any better, I went in for the start of my 3rd week of PT for my neck and shoulders this morning and was told to schedule a few more weeks and that my treatment is "just the tip of the iceberg" right now and I have a ways to go.

Tell your PT what you are trying to do and they should be more than willing to help you accomplish that goal. Speak up if you think you can handle more than what they are giving you, but also, be aware if things are causing issues so you don't re-aggravate the current problem. I'm the Queen of PT and I'm finally catching on to how to make the best out of my PT each time I have to go back. (This is issue #9 or 10 in 12 years and officially a reoccuring issue.)

Good luck with PT!

Thanks, NP! I felt the pounding!

I went to the natural running clinic on Saturday. It was presented by Merrell and was focused on natural (aka barefoot) running and most of it was really interesting! I learned a lot.

Also, I was talking to some runners (non-barefoot) who regularly do 50k races. (31 mi). Oh. Em. Gee. This couple have done 30+ marathons between them, and 50k races are no big deal for them. He is training for some 100mi race in Colorado and she is currently getting ready for the Great Wall marathon in China.

They gave me a lot of good advice and pointers. And if they can regularly run 50k, I WILL run 3 miles eventually.

(stoopid knee)

I've got a question. When first getting into running, what is the better approach? Working on endurance at a slower/easier pace first and then increase speed? Or build endurance at that faster pace right from the get-go?

I've been doing the first option mainly because I have knee issues and want to ease into it, but I'm getting guff from the husband for my slower pace.

I was just telling Tigg what my new crazy-runner friends told me. Run long before you run fast. You need to build up your endurance/strength before you can run fast.

That doesn't mean you can't work in some sprints meanwhile.

And tell Mr. NP to hush. You are doing what you can do and if he wants to do something else, tell him to go to it.

I will second that... endurance before speed. The roomie just started getting back into running recently (starting with 1 mile a day). Last Friday he decided to crank up the speed in order to finish his mile faster. Boy was he hurting the next day!!

Mr. NP is jealous. His knee, that he's had surgery on, isn't playing nice with him and he just can't do it. But he's one of those that "plays hard." (Hence the surgery.) He'd be just like manimal's roomie.

I told him that I'm going the slow and steady route. It worked for the tortise, so why wouldn't it work for me?

I found a great resource for us -
www.thedailymile.com

I just started using it, (so it's not truly accurate as to things like annual mileage totals,) but it's a great resource for tips and tricks, forums for help, and it has a nifty little widget that lets you plot your running path around your neighborhood (if you run locally and not on a track or treadmill) and it calculates your mileage. Very cool... Hopefully as I track more my totals won't be as embarrassing shortly!

I also was told to check this out, so I'm going to pay it forward:
www.completerunning.com/archives/2006/09/12/100-beginner-runner-tips/

Thank you!

Wow TAK, sounds like you went through a lot last week!

Keep at it and lay off the running part.

You're my hero too!!

New training question for anyone that can answer . . . .

As of this morning, I am now up to a 40 minute jog. I'll be doing this for a few more days before I increase to a new goal. But, in trying to set my next goal, I want to know: a) Should I increase the length of time and/or the speed of my run, or b) Stay at 40 minutes, but add in an extra day of running to the week? I currently run 2x a week and then spend the other 4 days doing lighter work-outs of either speed walking or recumbent bike in fear of aggravating the knee.

Before a good answer can be given (and many on here can), we need to know your long term goal. To be fit in general?, to become a solid 5K runner? To run a marathon? Triatholon? World Frisbee champion?
Any goal can be good.

To be fit. To see my abs again. To not have ongoing knee issues and stay out of physical therapy. And to run a 5k in July and maybe consider other 5ks.

Fantastic goals each! There is an old saying "Abs are created in the kitchen" and its true. If you want to be ripped, eating correctly is definitely going to be part of the plan. But to more directly answer your original question, I would look into one of the running programs found online. One of the more popular ones is C25K. JJ, ThomasJ and some of the others can offer great advice on the more advanced aspects of running (crazy marathoners).
Just remember that you arent running it all tomorrow. You have time and need to let your body adjust.

I think variety would be best. Add 10 minutes to one of your runs next week and maybe speed up the pace on the other one - even if you don't run as long/far. If your knees don't object to either of those, do it again the following week and add a day to your running schedule.

Check the 5k race that you want to do, what is the terrain like, is there a hill? You may want to add some hill repeats to one of your runs. Running a hill is not something you want to learn on race day

Nor running on a hot, humid July day?

Good timing, NP - the May issue of Runner's World is devoted to new runners/5k hopefuls! I'm going out to pick it up on my lunch today...

I've been using the cto5k program, and it's going well so far. Warning: Week 5, Day 3 is a breaking point. It was almost my wall, (which from reading the runners forums, seems pretty common.) If you can get back off the couch to do week 6, you seem to be in pretty good spirits.

I've also heard that diet is 80%, exercise/training is 20% of fit. I hope that's not true, because no matter how healthy I try to stay, food just loves me too much for me to stay too involved in a diet. (I am a vegetarian, though, so I'm not too badly off.)

Runnersworld.com is an excellent resource for all of your running questions and concerns. They also have forums just like BOL Well, not JUST like this but....

Picked up runner's World, but haven't had a chance to look at it.

I did get my first 5k in this morning on the treadmill and it was awesome!!!!

And, this may be my last week of PT on my neck and shoulders. Life is moving right along.

Hi!

So I'm down to PT once a week and he is going to let me know next week when he thinks I can start run/walking again. Fingers crossed.

On vacation last week, we walked for about 5+ hours Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and rented bikes Thursday and Friday. I didn't get to do "formal" exercise as I had hoped, but I'm still pleased with that.

Also! The weather is almost warm enough for me to start biking to work. I'm kind of excited about that.

Yay for the biking weather!!!

the weather was warm enough yesterday that I turned on the air conditioning and grabbed an ice cream sandwich

Almost warm enough for the lazy river?