Experiment #1: Couch Potato to 10k in 20 Weeks (Day 1)

I must be crazy, because I decided to pick a difficult and lengthy first experiment. I have good reasons to focus my attention on health and fitness, though. First of all, the New Year always brings with it countless advertisements on radio and television that play to post-holiday guilt. I'm more than a little disgusted with the idea that health is only important at the beginning of each year, and before "bikini season," but the way I see it, anything that motivates people to take care of themselves is a step in the right direction. Many of the problems can be blamed on the consumer, in this case; people are generally too lazy/busy/discouraged/uninformed to make good investments in future health versus wasteful spending on first-quarter guilt. In a world on information overload, it can be difficult to get a clear picture of what is appropriate for each person, and often, we are too full of ourselves to discuss "embarrassing" topics with our physicians. I can raise my hand and admit to all of the above, so I can't really be objective, in my assessment/over-generalization.

Secondly, I feel like a sloth, after months of limited activity following a lower back injury. I am scared to overdo it, as I creep back into a more active lifestyle. I could have opted to try a much shorter plan, but concern for personal safety is a huge priority. Starting at a very basic level of fitness and giving myself plenty of time to progress means that I will be able to ask for opinions from doctors and specialists, if necessary.

I will be following this plan (PDF), courtesy of Hanson's Running. (Their home site is INCREDIBLY out of date, but the plan itself looks pretty solid/precise.) I'm logging individual workouts through SparkPeople.com, but I'll post my basic stats here too, for ease of viewing.

To be fair, I didn't actually start on Sunday, because post-holiday packing and New Year's blog updates killed most of my day. I did walk today, and for this first week, I'm going to push tomorrow's walk to Wednesday, to give myself enough time to rest.

Today's Stats:

Scheduled workout: 30 minutes of easy walking.
My time: 33'31"
Mileage/Step count: 1.42 mi./3,182
Calories burned (est.): 136
Energy level: Med-low. I did NOT get enough sleep last night, and tonight is going to be rough, too. I can feel a headache coming on; it has been a while.
Motivation: Medium.

I still need to take some basic measurements, so I will plan to post those tomorrow, on my day off.