Emi inspired running/workout

[Caden Tiksaril]

I did it! My first 5K run! Not sure what else to say, I'm just so glad I finally got this done. Week 9 will be a bit skewed though, since I'll be moving next week and need to scout for another good running spot.

[wazuzu]

I did it! My first 5K run!

Congratulations.

I failed my run on friday (got pains under the right side of my ribcage, you know, the typical pain when you run a lot), so I did my run on saturday. I don't think I will be able to run 30 minutes like I thought in monday, sadly.

[Merloficus]

Been keeping to my routine of running about 45 min every other day, slowing increasing the distance I travel in that time. At the moment I'm at 8km or so. Give or take a few steps. The other day I aparatently busted a blood vessel in my foot pretty early on (musta hit a rock or something) and by the end of the run my shoe was leaking blood. That's probably normal. I didn't even notice until I took of my shoe and was like "hm, I don't recall owning red socks". Anyway, by the time it was time to run again, I had all healed up and was back on the track. No pain no gain!

Haha, same here. Have no idea when it happened, just saw the side of my shoe become slightly red. Actualy thought it was dirt/filth at first, since i do part of my run through a forest. Then came home and noticed the sock... Never even felt it. And now i have a nice stain on my shoe to remind me
Guess we both pushed our bodies quite hard

Keep going at it! Slowly worked my way up as well. Surprisingly, the jump from 45 mins to 1 hour was realy easy. Going from 15 to 30 was the hardest for me.
Best of luck with the running!

[Avalon®]

It's funny how you say that. I actually eat bread in the morning (I don't know if you have bread available?) with peanut butter (that contains no salt), in the morning. I do this mainly for the proteins, and because I like it.
For lunch I grab plain rice, and sometimes I'll eat something with it. For dinner I eat vegetables with a good amount of meat, mainly again for the proteins (and because I love meat whahahahaha~ )!

Rice is much more common here in the Philippines plus the local cuisine is more or less full of oil, grease and lard.

Dieting tips... *snip*

I'm around for questions if you have them.

Thanks for the guide. I'll try to follow this but the food here isn't really conducive to healthy eating. I guess I need to learn some time management in order to start making my own meals then.

[Gamera Ramen]

After a 2-week vacation in Washington that involved all sorts of things that were not running please don't hate me I finally got running again. On Friday I went 1 week before where I was (1.5/1.5/3/3, then repeat) then today bumped it up to the troublesome one that I was on (3/1.5/5/2.5/3/1.5/5). It was hell, and I almost had to break the time to extend my rest, but I pulled through somehow. Felt good (at least mentally when I was done.)
Unfortunately, I'm leaving for another Washington trip on Tuesday, so that's gonna be another period without running.

I physically have difficulty running for times more than a couple minutes, which is one way this has helped me. It used to be that my lungs were the first to give out, but I've noticed that's not the case anymore! Dunno if they're improving or I just suck less.

I personally have always run with music, mostly upbeat poppy stuff I've got. Some help more than others.

[wazuzu]

I skipped my 3rd day (it still makes 36 successful days out of 39) because of insane migraine I had yesterday and today. It stopped, but I still feel my head like a big cauldron made of pig iron. Small and meaningless bump to this thread.

[wazuzu]

I feel quite sad for double-posting here.
Today I did a test for myself. My first half of a run was typical 15 min jog, but on my second half I decided to sprint until I will be completely exhausted. I held on for 4-5 minutes or so. That's quite great, since I was tired out by 15 min run to start with, and I was never able to run at maximum speed for longer than 30-40 seconds before.

[YukiDoh]

Hi all! After reading these forums for the longest time I finally registered just to say thank you to everyone who has put so much effort into this thread and for sharing all your stories. There's so much inspiration, dedication and pure passion shown throughout these pages that I've finally decided to get my own butt in gear and start doing some more exercise. I'm just starting with some simple things like press-ups and sit-ups because I can easily fit them into my schedule, nor do I need any equipment, but I'd like to start running this week too. I suppose I'm struggling to get the confidence to actually go out and exercise in public as odd as that may sound! To begin with I'll probably try and get out before most people are up. I start work pretty early on, so getting up at 4 or 5 is usually no problem.

I'm a week or so into this and whilst it's early days and whilst I know I've not made enough or a change to have a significant impact yet, I already feel so much more positive just from making the effort to change my life in a good way.



Please wish me luck and again, thank you all for sharing so much with me. I only hope I can keep this up and share my experiences to help others in the future too.
Yuki, x

[Gamera Ramen]

Went running again today, completing Week 4 (finally!). Haven't been running often lately due to constant trips, but I'll mostly be in town for the next 3 months or so. Unfortunately, that's because of school, which starts up tomorrow. I'll try to get some running in, either in the afternoon or the weekend, but I won't be posting here nearly as often.

I've finally decided to get my own butt in gear and start doing some more exercise.

Excllent, we've claimed another...

Please wish me luck and again, thank you all for sharing so much with me. I only hope I can keep this up and share my experiences to help others in the future too.
Yuki, x

The hardest day is the first, and the second-hardest is the second. Just go right into it, and you'll be going fine in no time!

[Caden Tiksaril]

This was certainly a bad week by my standards. Wasn't able to go 5K on any of my three sessions this week, mainly due to a sharper than usual pain in my right leg, which I suspect might be the makings of a shin splint. It's not bad enough where I feel it all the time though, just when I'm running on asphalt. But for the time being I'll switch over to grass and see how well that works.

[wazuzu]

It's not bad enough where I feel it all the time though, just when I'm running on asphalt. But for the time being I'll switch over to grass and see how well that works.

I ran on soil for first few weeks, that was very convenient. I run on asphalt now, but I feel almost the same, thanks to my running shoes (that's almost an advertisement, since those were the cheapest (~95$) and the most convenient shoes I could find in my town in price range of around 200$). I tried to run a little in my casual shoes, and oh, that was a pain. Shoes matter a lot, so make sure you got proper ones. And grass actually is bad, because it's too soft.
Best out-of-track place to run is trampled soil imo. Soft enough, yet not as hard as concrete or asphalt.

[Gamera Ramen]

I live by a river, so it's about 3 minutes away from a nice running trail. I can choose between a path that's asphalt with hard dirt on the sides or a gravel-topped levee. I'm splitting the two pretty evenly and not noticing much of a difference (I run on the dirt, not the asphalt). Any difference there might be I'm not catching?

[wazuzu]

Any difference there might be I'm not catching?

Well, I actually stated in my post that I feel little difference too because of my running shoes. Good shoes make your step feel softer, as if you are running on a track, even if you are not.

[Nightfish]

Small update from me, still doing my 7-ish km at 10km/h every other day. Smooth going. Can't really go much longer for lack of time, but either way, it's a nice little bit of balance to the office job.

I live by a river, so it's about 3 minutes away from a nice running trail. I can choose between a path that's asphalt with hard dirt on the sides or a gravel-topped levee. I'm splitting the two pretty evenly and not noticing much of a difference (I run on the dirt, not the asphalt). Any difference there might be I'm not catching?

As wazuzu said, shoes make a world of difference. Ideally, I think, you'd want the same ground to run on for the entire time. Doesn't even matter if it actually were the asphalt you're on, if you have the right shoes, that'll be fine. I used to do a lot of running on asphalt, simply for lack of a better path, and using my regular shoes I got issues with my knees pretty quickly. Then I got shoes that were optimized for that terrain and never had problems.

I'm sure this has been addressed at least once in this thread already, but go to a professional place to get your shoes! If they don't put you on a ... treadmill (?) ... I think that's the word... anyway, if they don't put you on that and look at how you're doing with the shoes, imho, don't buy there. Again, this may be just me, but my legs aren't perfect. In, that my ankles tend to bend inward a little more than they should. There is a sporty medical term for that, but I forget. Either way, proper shoes fix that and instead of doing harm to myself over the long run (pun intented and horrible) I won't ruin my legs with proper shoes. So yay.

[Caden Tiksaril]

Guess I didn't have much to worry about after all. My legs felt better on the asphalt today, and I got to 5K for the first time in over a week. Not that I had much choice with surfaces though, it's literally asphalt/concrete vs. grass where I live now (no dirt paths to speak of). Regarding my shoes, they should still have another month or two left in them. I was under the impression that the pain I was experiencing last week was due to bad form more than anything else, something I made sure to correct this morning. Anyway, with the 5K run this morning I am at least back on track for Week 9 (i.e. three straight 5K runs in one week) of the challenge.