How to start...

Hi there!

A friend of mine posted on my facebook page the other day (in response to me posting about a training bike/run,) "How did you get started?"

How does anything get started?

When it comes to any kind of endurance sport, just start small. People can even look at say.. a sprint Triathlon (~800 yard swim, 18 mile bike, and 5K run) and think 'Oh, that swim would kill me! I can't bike that far!'... etc... etc...

Simple. Start small.

ANYBODY (roughly) can run/jog/walk a 5K. It is 3.1 miles. If you grew up on Chicago's South Side like I did, from about the SouthEast corner of Ford City Mall to Mother McAuley High School's front door; or, if you are a Northsider, from the front sign at Wrigley Field to the Beach house on North Ave Beach (via Clark and North Ave.)

That is really not that far.

The swim is the most intimidating thing. People rightly kind of freak out in open water. Some people have never learned to swim. My mom took us to the YMCA when we were little, and they basically just threw us into the unheated pool. Grab the sides, try not to drown.

After that, I was always in the water if there was water to be in. Summers in Kentucky, swimming every single day rain or shine in the lake. Oceans are salty, which was strange for a sweetwater swimmer, but you get used to it (spit it out!)

Start small.

Don't even think of running a 5K.... well, except maybe as a goal. Just go for a walk. Plan on it every night, or morning, or whatever. just once a day, take a stroll. Doesn't even have to raise the heart. The idea is to just start doing SOMETHING, and walking is one of the most simple skills we learn. Anyone with children will tell you that you would almost have to prevent them to stop children from learning how to walk. They WANT to!

So get used to walking. You don't even need shoes!! (There are really good reasons to get behind why the barefoot running community calls them 'foot coffins.')

So you want to run now?

Remember, your body has a certain ability to heal and grow (even if you are 90!) We have to respect those limits, too. If you have been living a 'seated' lifestyle, had little to no physical activity (drive to the end of the block to get McDonald's) you need to let your body start that process correctly. It takes a little bit for the ligaments, joints, muscles, to get used to being used again.

There are all kinds of 'couch to 5K' apps out there, you can use one if you like, but the basic rule is this-- Start slow, increase slow, but don't give up.

The running rule of thumb for distance is only increase your running distance by 10% a week, never more. That seems to be a fair rule.

Another way of looking at it is in relation to time. When you are on those walks, pick up your tempo a bit, or trade off jogging a minute, walking a minute... jog/walk/jog/walk. I actually have a GymBoss timer that I use for interval training on my runs, and it beeps at user-set times. When I run, I have it set (for now) at 7/1, so when I run, I run/jog for 7 minutes, then walk for 1 minute, then run for 7, etc... Mentally, it is a game, because I always know I have a short walk in the very near future.

That is really it. You just have to find a way to start. Get that first walk in! Spring is here, so go take a walk around the neighborhood. I actually love running through neighborhoods. Check out the houses, etc.

Treadmill running is "OMG" boring. ugh. But, when the weather goes to crap, you can either run in life-threatening weather, or bounce along on a treadmill. I vote treadmill (even though I can palpably feel my brain rot when I forget to bring a new podcast, etc...)

IF you have ANY goal, especially for your first 5K, it should be along these lines-- "I know I can finish this, there is no time limit, so I am going to run/jog when I can, walk when I want, and pick up my t-shirt at the finish."

So you can set that goal. --'Run the Runway 5K' looks cool. It was in October last year. You get to run out onto the north runway AT O'HARE. How cool is that? you can WALK it!! no need to run!! But if you wanted to do a 5K, that would be cool. Pick one, if you want, just be realistic. Rome wasn't burned in a day.

Does it get any simpler? You still have not gotten new shoes! You most likely don't need them!

Now, if you want to do 5Ks, etc, regularly, or start running/jogging daily, you probably should go to a good shoe store and have a 'stride/gait analysis' done. They will look at how your foot lands, the loads you put on your body, and will probably recommend something really expensive. As a barefooter, I tend to be against that, but then again I have an awesome contact for barefoot (zero lift, zero drop, etc) shoes... they tend to be extra pricey!

You can get not quite so expensive shoes simply by asking if they have last year's model, etc. You could go for a stride/gait analysis, and then buy the shoes off of Amazon, but I think that is unfair (you went to get checked out, which they do for free, under the assumption that you will buy shoes from them.) But, to each his own.

Going further----

If swimming intimidates you, there are YMCAs, Master's Swim clubs, etc, that all have adult learn-to-swim programs, and I highly recommend them to anyone that does not know how to swim. I can teach you to swim, too. At the very least, I can help make you comfortable in the water. Not knowing how to swim or being afraid of swimming is nothing to be embarrassed about! No big deal. Lots of people don't know. Historically, until quite recently, even sailors did not necessarily know how to swim (honest-- if a warship went down, even in sight of land (such as during the Napoleanic wars, thinking of when Nelson found the French Fleet in Egypt,) everyone on board would usually drown. When you see figures on naval battle losses or casualties, by far the largest group of losses would be from drowning when the ship sank.)

You can swim... honest you can! The first thing to get over is the fear of water, and the only way to really do that is to... get this... get in the water. Get in shallow water, with someone you trust. wear a life jacket (honestly!) Get used to the feeling of the water around you. Some people never get used to that. That's fine... not everyone needs to learn how to swim (although I think everyone actually should learn how to swim enough to survive getting dumped into the water,) but it is certainly a good skill to learn.

Biking--

Did anyone not ride a bike when they were a kid?

Triathlon bikes are crazy expensive, but a bike is a bike. The most important things about a bike is that it fit. You can have a super high $$ bike (diamond crusted pedals, solid gold seat, etc,) and if it fits like sh*t, you can actually injure yourself riding it, and it will never be comfortable to ride. Take that old beater out of the garage and take it in to a bike shop to get updated (replace the rusted chain, etc... etc...) it doesn't even need to be a multi-speed bike, single speeds bikes are just fine! Have it fit to you. If the frame is too small for you, or it is too long a reach to the handle bars, you probably need to find a new (or different) bike, if you plan on riding for any length of time. No reason to damage your knees or hips by riding a bike that doesn't fit you.

You can find all kinds of used bikes on Craig's List, or EBay... just know what size you need. Again, you can go get a bike fit, and then use the info you get to buy someplace else.

And then just like the jogging, you simply have to go and do it. It sounds so trite, but the reality is, the only thing stopping you from going is you. I do a lot of running/swimming early mornings or nights after we put our son to bed. I want as little interference with my family as possible.

Simply put, in order to get started, you just have to.... wait for it.... start.

Cheers!

Scott