Running? Me?

I’ve always thought runners were crazy, and the few times I’ve attempted to adopt a regular running program, (with the goal of increasing my endurance for ultimate frisbee) I’ve ended a few weeks later with knee pain and pretty much no improvement.

But for the past year I’ve been taking time out of my day to go walking pretty regularly (one of the benefits of owning a dog…) and have been wearing minimalist shoes. More recently I’ve occasionally been breaking into a jog, mostly to get said dog to stop sniffing Every. Single. Plant. And since my knees still feel pretty darn good I figure I’ll give running another shot.

I really have no interest in running for its own sake, and since I’m not really planning on playing any more serious ultimate frisbee, I no longer have that external motivation. But this year so far has been entirely focused just on overall health and well being, and I do think that being able to run well is just one of those important life skills. (Zombieland rule #1: Cardio.)

So I downloaded a “couch to 5k” style app and finally shelled out for some nice, minimalist Merrell “barefoot” running shoes. The first day of running was just alternating 1 minute of jogging with 1.5 minutes of walking, for a total of 6 rounds. I focused on keeping my feet landing flat and evenly and staying “springy”, (this has been my best defense against irritating my knees) and it felt quite good.

My dog was a bit confused though.

Well, we’ll see how this progresses!

3 Notes/ Hide

  1. kirstentraining posted this