{"id":767,"date":"2010-04-29T18:00:58","date_gmt":"2010-04-29T23:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.coreyhulse.com\/?p=767"},"modified":"2011-01-24T18:29:48","modified_gmt":"2011-01-24T23:29:48","slug":"couch-to-10-miles-in-five-months","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.coreyhulse.com\/corey\/2010\/04\/29\/couch-to-10-miles-in-five-months\/","title":{"rendered":"couch to 10 miles in five months"},"content":{"rendered":"

Long time, no post.<\/p>\n

Back in November of 2009, I decided that I needed some kind of fitness goal. I was involved in intramurals and used to walk a lot around campus back in college, but since that point my daily exercise now normally consists of video games.<\/p>\n

I decided that the Broad Street Run<\/a> was the way to go. It’s a 10-mile race in Philadelphia that’s been held for more than 30 years, and the course is a simple straight line down Broad Street, starting up near Onely Street, a slight curve around City Hall, and all the way down until you hit the Naval Yard.<\/p>\n

I started training post-Thanksgiving, giving myself about five months to go from my couch to a ten mile mark. So, how do you get from zero miles to ten miles? I asked Google.<\/p>\n

I found a site with two good pages. One talked about how to go from nothing to a 5K (3.1m) in about 2 months<\/a>, and then the second page talked about going from a 5K to 10 miles<\/a>. Perfect! I mapped out my weekly plan for when and how much I needed to run each week, and set out to work.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, I didn’t stick with the plan. As a busy man who is always parasailing with movie stars, I would sometimes push out or completely skip workouts. Here’s a chart comparing the max mileage I should have been doing against an approximation of what I actually did.<\/p>\n

\"ActualVsPlannedMiles\"<\/p>\n

I haven’t been keeping on track with the pace I wanted, but what I have noticed is that I can go much longer distances at a higher pace without stopping or slowing down. When I started, I could hardly go a 1\/2 mile without slowing down to a walk. Now, I can get through 2 miles at a high pace when I run outside, and can easily get through a 5K on a treadmill without slowing down.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, I also found a running group that I joined, called KOP Runners<\/a>.\u00a0 It’s a small group of relatively new people to running, and it was a great fit for my beginner status.<\/p>\n

Skip ahead to April. I’ve been happily chugging along with training, but haven’t done any races yet. I set out a schedule to quickly ramp up distances in the final month leading up to the Broad Street Run.<\/p>\n

04-11-10: Penn Colleges Against Cancer 5K – 38:03 (12:15 min\/mi)
\n04-18-10: Valley Forge Revolutionary Run 5-Mile<\/a> – 54:14 (10:51 min\/mi)
\n04-26-10: Miami Beach Boardwalk Run 8-Mile (Self-Timed)<\/a> – 1:35 (11:57 min\/mi)
\n05-02-10: Broad Street Run 10-Mile – ???<\/p>\n

I’ve also found a great iPhone Application called RunKeeper<\/a>, which uses the GPS in your phone to ping your location, and give you real-time feedback on speed and mileage.\u00a0 It also has LiveTracking of events, so the goal is to use it during the Broad Street Run to let people know where I am at the race (and where to find me if I collapse during the race).<\/p>\n

Bookmark this link and follow my progress on race day! http:\/\/runkeeper.com\/user\/coreyhulse\/activities<\/a><\/p>\n

I’m hoping to finish the race in 2:10, giving me a 13:00 min\/mi pace.\u00a0 Is it fast? No, of course not. But it will be an accomplishment for someone who’s idea of exercise is watching sports on TV.<\/p>\n

Update:<\/em> I’ve completed the Broad Street Run<\/a>!\u00a0 2:01:52 (12:11 mi\/min), beating my anticipated time by about eight minutes.\u00a0 When I got to the final mile, I gave it a push to finish in under two hours, but I new I had to pace myself properly.\u00a0 However, this gives me motivation to come back next year and try to get it under two hours.<\/p>\n

So what’s next?\u00a0 I’m debating doing a half-marathon, and there’s the Rock n’ Roll Half-Marathon<\/a> in September.\u00a0 Hmmmm… Stay tuned, sports fans.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Long time, no post. Back in November of 2009, I decided that I needed some kind of fitness goal. I was involved in intramurals and used to walk a lot around campus back in college, but since that point my daily exercise now normally consists of video games. I decided that the Broad Street Run […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[49,44],"class_list":["post-767","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports","tag-charts","tag-running"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.coreyhulse.com\/corey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.coreyhulse.com\/corey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.coreyhulse.com\/corey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.coreyhulse.com\/corey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.coreyhulse.com\/corey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=767"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.coreyhulse.com\/corey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":914,"href":"https:\/\/www.coreyhulse.com\/corey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767\/revisions\/914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.coreyhulse.com\/corey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.coreyhulse.com\/corey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.coreyhulse.com\/corey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}