I started Week 2 of the Couch to 5k program today, and I survived! Felt very good after finishing as well. I went to the doctor yesterday about the pain in my shins I've been having, yes, I have shin splints. Unless I want to pay expensive physio bills, I've just been advised to warm up longer and stop pushing myself through the pain like I was doing. Ideally, I shouldn't get to feel pain if I warm up longer, so we'll work it out as we go.
Anyway, I walked for 10 minutes and felt quite good, so on with the training. 90 seconds jogging, 120 seconds walking and alternated for 20 minutes as mentioned in the program. I'm glad that I can jog, I never thought I'd be able to. I think it's definitely having an impact on my fitness too, as I wasn't quite as puffed at the gym yesterday. Plus, I feel more in control of myself when I know I have exercised, or need to exercise to keep myself doing it daily. The days I've missed it (twice since 12th March) I thought about it all day long!
Food wise I feel a bit blah lately, I've been giving in to those temptations even though I know I shouldn't be. I'll be back on that bandwagon tomorrow. (The splurges weren't too bad, just silly little choices.) Thank goodness for diet lemonade. My saviour, with 1 calorie per glass, it's fantastic. Sometimes water just doesn't cut it for me.
This feels like it's been a very long week already, and it's only Tuesday. Ack! Tomorrow I go to the city to get my eyes all checked out ready to see if I qualify for laser eye surgery. Wish me luck!
Posted By: Incomplete
Comments to this post:
04/17/2007 06:26
Shin splints.
I've been lucky enough not to have these yet. But I belong to a runners' forum, and one of the things advised for shin splints is to re-lace your shoes less tightly. Some runners lace them from top to bottome instead of the other way. It's worth a go, and cheaper than physio.
Good luck with the running. I started at the end of January and can do about 7k now. It's amazing how quickly your fitness improves.
I just found your blog and I was reading some of your older entries and I totally identified with the "hiding" food issues. I was major for that. I've been sneaking food all my life. I can remember when I was about 9, I used to steal squares of my mom's baking chocolate. As I got older, I too turned to the fast food and would have days where I would sneak McDonalds into the house, eat it hidden in my room, have to have dinner (I couldn't admit that I'd eaten that stuff to my folks) and then hide back in my room and eat an entire bag of halloween chocolate. Luckily I'm getting a lot better about resisting temptations, but damn that pizza reward sounds like a great idea right now.
On to more current topics, I used to get shin splints all the time. What worked for me was upping my calcium intake. I now make sure that I have 1 cup of milk and 1 yogurt a day. Not sure if it was a coincidence or if the calcium really helped, but I haven't battled the splints since this change.
