Inside the Mind of Suz

Last year I did Cool Running’s Couch to 5k running plan for the first time. I went right through without any struggles. I didn’t need to do any of the weeks twice in a row before being able to move on, and while doing runs I never felt like I was going to die.

This year is a different story. I couldn’t figure out why, until I started dissecting my workout routine from both years.

In 2008, I was doing a lot of Turbo Jam cardio coupled with The Firm’s combo workouts. At the time, I was more into cardio than I was strength training. When it came time to start running, I was really ready and picked it right up!

This year, I started c25k running right after completing 4 months of ChaLEAN Extreme. The first couple of weeks was great, but after the runs extended to 2+ minutes, I found myself struggling and I couldn’t understand why.

I thought about the kind of training I was doing in ChaLEAN Extreme, and the focus was not on cardio. The slogan of the program is “Muscle Burns Fat”, so that’s what you concentrate on. There are calorie blasting workouts like the Burn/Lean Intervals DVDs, as well as Burn It Off and Fat Burn Challenge. However, those intense cardio spurts for those tapes are 1 minute max. That explains why everything was great for the 1st two weeks where you run for 60 and 90 seconds before recovering with a walk. No wonder that was so easy!

When I moved on to Week 3, it was a little harder, but not by much. It was a shorter run, so gutting it out wasn’t too bad. Then came Week 4 where I still think I’m going to die during that second 5 minute run! This didn’t happen last year when I got to this Week of c25k, and it’s so frustrating that it’s happening now.

I didn’t want to overwork my body while going through ChaLEAN Extreme for the first time. I didn’t think that would be very beneficial to my goals, so I didn’t do extra cardio workouts in addition to ChaLEAN Extreme. Going forward I probably would and will (during the next round). Hindsight is 20/20!

I’m just going to have to deal with struggling through c25k because of the lack of cardio in my workout routine this year-to-date. It sucks, but it is what it is. I hope I’m still ready to run a 5k by August, because I feel like I’m definitely going to have to repeat several weeks worth of runs this summer.

The silver lining of this cloud is that all the muscle I created with ChaLEAN Extreme is really helping to slim my tummy, even though the runs aren’t going as well as I’d hoped. See, I can see the positive in every situation!

I’ll be repeating Week 4 beginning next week.