How to take the first step

In my last blog, I talked about how the first step to becoming a beginning runner is to quite literally take the first step! But how long or fast should the "first step" be you ask? Well that frankly depends on the fitness level you are curently at. For someone that is fairly active and does a good deal of moderate exercise throughout the week, such as playing in a volleyball league, walking around the park, or lifting weights at the gym, you could probably start at a higher level than those who do not do quite as much moving throughout the day. If you are one who considers yourself to be a regularly more active person, you could probably start your training program by picking an amount of time that you feel you can comfortably run at before needing a 1-3 minute walking break. I would suggest starting at 10 minutes of jogging at a comfortable pace and seeing how that goes on your first time out. From there you can try and do one or two more intervals of 10 minutes depending on how you are feeling, you can adjust your pace as well. If you need to slow down on your second interval to a near walk, shorten it down to 5 minutes, or simply need to end your workout at one interval that is completely fine and even recommended. Do not over do it! Your muscles and circulatory system will need to get used to the running so do not get frustrated if the process is taking longer than you thought it would.

For those of you who consider yourselves to be more on the less active side, I would suggest you still try to go about your first few runs as intervals, but just decrease the time period of running to a more manageable amount. If that means it is only one minute of running and one minute of walking for three repeats, that is ok! We all start somewhere! Just try your best and do what you can do without straining your body too harshly. Just keep in mind that no matter what level you are beginning at it is important to have your rest days in the program as well, and you should not always just increase the mileage you run each day. I suggest a two day increase and one day rest pattern. For instance, let’s say I ran three 10 minute repeats with two minutes of walking in between on Monday, and on Tuesday I ran three 13 minute repeats with two minutes in between, on Wednesday I would maybe run two 10 minute repeats with 2 minutes of walking, or I would just run for 15 minutes. Just remember that the goal is to lower the breaks and increase the distance, but remember to stay comfortable and healthy!