Dr. Fett - goals for the future

[miachic]

I set a goal last year that I wanted to try and run a mini marathon or at least half walk/half run, probably mostly walking as I'm not much of a runner. I want to run the mini heart marathon and raise support for PPCM. I am looking at that goal to be accomplished possibly next year about this time. What steps should I take to get my heart into shape for that? Currently I walk a brisk pace on the treadmill about five days a week. What are the recommended steps to take to gradually wean into a more rigorous/aerobic workout?

Thanks!

[JAMESFETT]

Emily, that sounds like a good idea. I'm no expert on the conditioning part. In the past I've seen some guidelines from SusanD. Maybe she could help?

James

[miachic]

Cool! Thanks.

SusanD? Any suggestions?

[tbarton]

What a great goal! :) I'm in the middle of training for a mini-marathon (13.1 miles) myself right now. Is the race in your area? If it is, check with your local running club. My husband (leukemia survivor) and I are running in the Indy 500 mini-marathon in May. Our local running club has a program to gradually build you up to 13 miles. Ours even includes a YMCA membership so you can crosstrain at the gym and use the pool. They also have weekly classes on stretching and nutrition and injuries and anything else you'd need to know. Plus you have experienced coaches to answer questions and run with you. Periodically they have parties to celebrate reaching goals, like running 10 miles. And we're even taking buses up to the race together. It really provides a lot of accountability and motivation. We started in January and I think today is the first workout we've missed and that was because we had to go to Indianapolis for a cardiologist appointment.

Dh and I hadn't run a step before training started in January and last saturday I ran 5 miles. :) (Yeah me! LOL!) They have different levels like walkers or beginning runners. They provide a daily schedule that tells you what to run every day or when to crosstrain or whatever. It's been great. Twice a week we run with the group. (There are 350 people who signed up!) the rest of the time dh and I work out together.

There are several other training schedules I've seen on line so you could try to google "mini-marathon training schedules" but be sure it's a schedule that assumes you are starting from scratch. Some of the ones I saw assume that you are already a runner. We have a progressively longer run each weekend but during the week we only run 2 - 4 miles per day and sometimes even less and there are two rest days per week. So far it's working. I hurt my knee so I'm a couple of weeks behind everyone else but my dh (who has never run before) ran 7 miles on schedule saturday.

Good luck and have fun with it!:)

Teresa
PPCM since July 2002

[miachic]

Great ideas Teresa! Thanks! I'll look into it. I asked a friend who's a runner for some suggestions and she sent me a link that I haven't gotten a chance to check out. I figured it would take me awhile to build up to it so I wanted to start a year before...don't know whether that's good or bad..might lose motivation, hahahaha. At least the marathon isn't until next March/April so if I do fall behind I can catch up in the months preceding. They also have a 5k run so I've told myself that if I don't get conditioned enough for the mini marathon that I'll at least condition for the 5k.

Anyway. Thanks!