“A goal without a plan is just a wish.” – Antoine de Saint-Exupery
The first step of the Plan, Do, Check, Act cycle is to plan. This is a large step so I broke it into 2 parts. In Part 1, we discussed the goals including planning at several levels. In Part 2, we’re going to identify the steps we need to take on the way to our Short Term A goals, hoping to pick up some B and C goals along the way.
The specific training plan you put together should look like a calendar and include the actual activities you are planning to complete, any details about the activity and the specific dates you are targeting to complete them.
If you’re not tech savvy, you can skip this paragraph and stick with a basic calendar to get started, as things get more complex, technology may make it easier to manage and adjust. If you consider yourself tech savvy, I would encourage you looking into software like TrainingPeaks. This is my personal favorite, I’ve dabbled in a few others, but have had the most luck here, I build all my workouts in TrainingPeaks and will have some dedicates posts as well as referencing it as appropriate throughout this blog. If you have a tracking device like a Fitbit or Garmin watch, you can sync them automatically so once you complete an activity, it’ll register in TrainingPeaks, if you already have something planned, it’s smart enough to match them up and give you a completion percentage.
Your first training plan will just be compromised of walking. The goal is to comfortably get in 20 minute walks 4 times a week. Depending on where you’re starting, this may be something you have no problem doing right out of the gate, it may be something that takes some time to build to. Either way, this is an important first step, in part for the walking, but most importantly, where you start setting aside time to prioritize working on yourself. In that regard it’s one of the easiest goals, but it can also be one of the hardest since it means you have to be willing to start making changes.
The time you pick doesn’t matter as long as it’s something you can consistently do. It’s nice if you can make it the same time every day, to get into a routine, but find a time that works for you, this make take some experimentation. My morning workouts are generally an hour after I wake up and my evening workouts are generally an hour after dinner, 2 hours before bedtime.
After you “Do” each week, you will run through the “Check” and “Act” steps. Once you successfully complete the 20 minute walks, 4 times per week, we will start to slowly incorporate running. Remember the key difference between walking and running is the form, you may see little to no difference in pace to start. When you are walking, you will always have 1 foot on the ground, when you’re running, you will briefly jump from foot to foot. Your first running workouts should start with 5 minutes of walking to warm up. After that, I would start with 30 seconds of running followed by 90 seconds of walking. If that’s too much, starting with 15 seconds of running and 105 seconds of walking Repeat this interval 4 more times and end with 5 minutes of walking.
Once you can comfortably do this 4 times a week, I would recommend continuing a similar rhythm but adjust to 60 seconds of running followed by 60 seconds of walking until that is comfortable. After that, you have a choice, a lot of people, myself included, like the intervals for longer runs. If that is the case, you can keep it at 60 seconds running/60 seconds walking. This should be sustainable until you are comfortable with paces down to around 12:00 minutes per mile (5 miles per hour). If you prefer to run through, you can continue adjusting the run/walk balance, even to the point where you are running straight through. This is the path I followed initially, though I’ve been learning and trying to follow the run walk run method made popular by Jeff Galloway and it seems to be working well for me lately.
Once you’re comfortable with what you’re doing, you’re free to slowly add things that suit your goals. Remember the A’s are primary, but if you can make small changes to pick up some B goals and maybe even pick up some C goals along the way, that is great, but don’t lose focus on the A goals.
-If you are looking to complete a 5k, you can gradually build your duration until you can complete that distance.
-If you are interested in Triathlon, start working in a weekly swimming lesson or bicycle ride.
-If there’s a workout class that interests you, give it a try.
-If you are looking to add other activity, Darebee is a great resource with things like 30 day challenges.
Whatever you add, remember to keep your increases modest. I know you feel like you have a long ways to go and it’s tempting to just start doing it all right away, but more than likely you will over do it and fall off the wagon. A good rule of thumb is to try to increase workouts 10-20% per week, this is still what I use for duration of long runs and bike rides. Currently I am doing 10%-20% every other week as I’m alternating between long runs and long bike rides every Sunday.
Don’t forget to allow yourself time to recover. Simply put, exercise beats up your muscles, you get stronger during recovery. It’s important to find the right balance that works for your body. I really like active recovery as it allows me to fit more different work in and generally makes me feel better faster. For example, swimming is primarily upper body work, it takes place in a low gravity/low impact environment and requires moving your full body, these all mean that it pairs nicely with running and actually helps me get ready to run faster than exclusively resting.
Note on the cool down walk, the key thing here is that you don’t run and just stop moving. Once you do start moving again, you’ll learn why as you’ll likely be stiff. For me, I have eliminated the cool down walk since when my time is up, I will normally be 1-2 minutes from the house and I’ll have a few minutes putting away my shoes and heart rate monitor, then either getting ready for work or bed.