Guest Post! Couch to 5K!

Finally I found a minute to get online! Thankfully my girl Kim at RunnerNurse has sent me an awesome guest post for me to share with you! Check out her blog and love her as much as I do!  

Hello Ready, Set, Feast readers! It was super nice of the lovely Kelsey (I am her friend, I have to be nice to her) to ask me to do a guest post. I’m Kim from RunnerNurse.com, and I blog about running, being in nursing school, and eating red velvet cupcakes – oh, and drinking wine. The weather here in Chicago is warming up quite a bit lately, so I thought I would do a post for all the people out there who want to start running – but have no idea where to begin. I, like many of you, was not a good runner. Actually, I’m still not “good” – but I am at a completely different place now than I was pretty much exactly one year ago. I decided to sign up for my first 5k in 2011 after finishing up my 20+ years as a figure skater. After numerous attempts at running and enjoying some fantastic shin splints and sore ankles, I knew I needed a training plan. At that time, the Couch to 5k plan entered my life.

It is a FREE 9-week plan that takes you from not running at all to being able to run for 30 minutes/2-3 miles without stopping. Without injuries. Running 3 times a week. It is super cool. I followed it, and couldn’t believe how much I had improved by the end. I ran my first 5k in May of 2011 having only run a little over 2 miles the entire program – and didn’t have to stop once. I had signed up for a really relaxed 5k at a local zoo, and slowly ran the entire thing listening to my ipod – I can’t tell you how proud I felt crossing that finish line.

I then signed up for another 5k that fall, the Hot Chocolate 5k in Chicago. Then I signed up for my first 8k this past Sunday at the Shamrock Shuffle! Now, I use running to help me get rid of all the stress I experience while in nursing school.

Basically, here is what I have learned about running that might help YOU start.  First, some runs suck. Your legs feel like heavy rocks attached to your body and you want to die – this feeling goes away after about 1-2 miles for me. Just do the BEST you can – it is ok to take a walking break. Second, I NEED my music. Creating a new bomb.com playlist goes a long way for me. Here are a few of my favs right now..

Third, GET a running application. There are some awesome FREE ones available for many phones other than the iPhone. Once I realized I could run wherever I wanted outdoors and my phone would track my mileage and time, I enjoyed running even more. Now I can’t stand the treadmill. Once I knew I was going to stick with running, I also invested in some new running clothes that I found on sale at Sports Authority. Having a sweet outfit to sweat it out in made me look forward to heading outdoors. Lastly, and possibly the most important, invest in some good running shoes and purchase them from a running store where people know what will keep you from personally from getting injured.

I hope that someone out there found this helpful, and I’d love to hear of anyone else who has enjoyed the Couch to 5k program! Good luck and thanks for reading!!

PS. Seriously, how cute is Kim? I just want put her in my pocket and carry her around with my all day.  Also can you tell we are friends….she listens to J.Bieb too!