C25K Malawi Style

If you are not familiar with C25K (read it as C to five K) it's the Couch to 5k program.  It is a step by step program that will (theoretically) take you from being a couch potato to being able to run a 5k in just 9 short weeks.  Dave and I have decided that we are going to do this program together and we are starting this week, sort of.

How do you sort of start a running program?  Well if you are less than 3 weeks post op from a gall bladder removal (Dave) or sadly and incredibly out of shape (ME) you start by walking.  The first week of the program you are supposed to "Brisk five-minute warmup walk. Then alternate 60 seconds of jogging and 90 seconds of walking for a total of 20 minutes." You do three time a week. Sounds reasonable enough except for one thing if I walk for 20 minutes at a pace that allows me to keep up with Dave (who walks as fast as many people jog, I'm talking a 12 minute mile) I am huffing and puffing like mad.  It's pitiful really.  


This week we are trying to walk 20 minutes everyday.  If we circle the block we live on it is almost exactly 2 km and last night it took us about 20 minutes, I'm sure Dave could have done it in less if I hadn't been along, I could feel myself slowing down a bit on the second kilometer.  Tonight we set out again.  By the end of the first kilometer I could feel a blister forming on my heel.  I finished the walk tonight in true Malawi style, barefoot and carrying my shoes.  Of course I am sure that the other people I saw walking barefoot and carrying shoes were doing so to make their shoes last a little longer, not because their fancy athletic shoes had given them a blister.