Five years and one month ago, I started the Couch to 5k running program. At that moment, I was doing the walk part of a 5k walk/run with two co-workers. As we walked, we talked about how we had all come across the program online and meant to start it one of these days. Thinking that day was as good as any, we all decided to try running the intervals for the rest of the 5k. Of course that program led to me eventually completed a dozen or so 5k races, a 10k, a few 8ks and eventually a half marathon, full marathon, and triathlon.

Then I sort of took last winter off completely from running. In March I had the first of two foot surgeries, with only a few weeks in between where I was healed. I have just gotten to the point where both feet are healed enough for running. As you can imagine, all that time off from running, and really most physical activities, has left me vastly out of shape.

As a result, I decided to go back to the beginning (That’s what Vizzini said to do). And the beginning in this case is the Couch to 5k. Since technology has come a long way in the last five years, doing the program has become much easier. Rather than having to frequently look at my watch to see if I have reached 60 or 90 seconds, I can just use the C25K app on my iPhone. I can use it along with my own music and it tells me when to walk and when to run. It also tells when I am halfway through with the program so that I can turn back around and head toward home. The only downfall that I can see so far is that I don’t think I can close the app and resume where I left off, which means that I cannot use my iPhone to take pictures along my run.

You can read all about the app here or the original plan here.

I completed the first 30 minutes today. It was 90 seconds of walking alternated with 60 second of running for a total of 20 minutes. It also included a 5 minute walking warm-up and 5 minute cool down. The walking bits were fine, but during the (slow) running parts, I thought my lungs would explode. Ah, just like the old days.