I revived my exercise program about one month ago and I have been consistently taking small steps on my running. In this time, I have had 23 exercise slots. I started by just walking, then added in a minute or two of running, and now am moving into my run/walk program. I do a 5 minute warm-up and 5 minute warm-down and now I am doing a 4 minute run / 1 minute walk module. This means that I run for 4 minutes, then walk for 1 minute. So I am running about 50% of the total time of my work out (including the warm ups and downs).
As I use a treadmill, I can work with speeds and heartrate to guide my progress. Currently I run between 9.0km/hr and 7.0km / hr. At the same time I observe my heartrate. It is currently within 50-60% of my maximum heart rate which is acceptable for base training. I talk about how to calculate your maximum heart rate here.
So now that I am building up my time running, I adjust total work-out time (20-35 mins), speed while running (my target is 10km/hr) and my heartrate (so I can do more exercise with less exertion). The biggest lesson here is that small and consistent is the only way to build up a healthy fitness level.
I also have a target for my first triathlon of the year: an Olympic distance in Suixian in Henan province in China. Here’s to a healthy year for you and your family.