Early this year I signed up for the Malta Marathon Walkathon, which follows the half-marathon route of The Malta Marathon and has a time limit of 4 hours. The intention was for me to get fitter by training for it, since I was leading an almost completely sedentary life.
Since this was a late decision, I only had 7 weeks to train, but train I did, following a walkathon training plan that had me doing two short (6km) walks during the week, and a longer walk (up to 15km) on the weekend. I completed the walkathon with my mother in 4 hours and 5 minutes, despite a large blister on the ball of my right foot that appeared at the 15th kilometre and burst (agonisingly) a hundred metres away from the finish line.
After the high of finishing, I decided to continue the training program and work up to running. During the long hours of walking (around 4 hours a week) I had listened to a couple of audiobooks about running, which got me interested. I read running magazines, bought a running book, browsed running websites and tried to visualise myself as a runner.
Somehow I lost my resolve though, and nothing came of that.
Now that the long, hot, sticky Maltese summer is finally over, I have decided to renew my quest to become a runner.
Some day I would love to run a marathon, but I acknowledge that will take a while, so for now I am choosing smaller goals.
I came across a program that looks like it is tailor-made for me, appropriately named Couch to 5k. The idea is that a couch potato can, by taking things slowly, work up to running 5km after two months of training three times a week.
The program is a run-walk program, so training sessions alternating between periods of running and periods of walking, increasing the ratio of run:walk over time as fitness improves.
Hmmm, yes, this might be just the ticket.
Off to do some planning...