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Some surprising facts from the Colonel
The walk-run workout
I’ve just started jogging again after a year of being lazy. Day one was terrible—after only one mile my heart started throbbing and my lungs were burning. To add insult to injury, that mile took me 12 minutes to run. What can I do to increase my endurance and speed without having a heart attack?
First, congratulations for getting back into training. Rather than trying to run at your old pace and exhausting yourself, try combining walking and running.
Start with a five-minute walking warm-up. Then, run for five minutes. Next, begin alternating walking for five minutes and running for five minutes. Keep this up until you've spent half an hour walking and running. You'll get 30 minutes of exercise, and you'll actually spend more time running than if you overdo it by going too fast.
Next, cut down the walking time and increase your running time. Do this until you get to the point where you can run for 20-30 minutes without getting tired. If you walk briskly to warm up and cool down, you’ll gradually build up to 30 to 45 minutes of continuous aerobic exercise.
Once you're comfortable with running non-stop for longer periods of time, you can vary your running speed.You can do this in the same way that you alternated walking and running when you first started training. Walk to warm up, start jogging slowly, and then increase your speed over a couple of minutes. Slow down to a jog again. Eventually, you'll be able to lengthen the faster sections and increase your average speed over longer periods of time. Not to mention, it will do wonders for your heart.
Don't forget to stretch your hamstrings, lower back, quadriceps and calf muscles before, and especially after, your workout. They will get tighter from running and you need to keep them as loose as possible in order to avoid stiffness or injury. The more flexible you are, the smoother your running will be.
Why not chat to other iVillagers about running on the Running For Fitness & Fun message board. Take a look at some of the LIVE discussions happening now on the board:
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