Shredheads

Fair's fair. Or is it?

Yesterday, Bill and I were emailing about our 5K times and it came up that there's a good chance he'll still be doing some walking during his 5K race.

He's been doing an interval training 5K, which is what most couch to 5K programs recommend. And for good reason. They do help train your body and heart to get used to varying speeds, and they do well in building up your endurance.

My program goes by length of time, although I've switched over to a modified Hal Higdon program which goes by distance. I'm currently at 2.75 (my long run on Friday) that took me exactly 30 minutes.

Either way, I'm running the entire time and he's running for 3 minutes and walking for 45 seconds. And I'm not sure you can completely and accurately compare our times since even though he's going faster overall and definitely has a better run pace than I do, he's getting those 45 seconds at around 4 mph which does bring the heartrate down a bit.

So, I asked a couple of people what they thought. The female runner said that it does matter, and that in fact, you can't completely compare times. My husband, on the other hand, said time is the only thing that matters; when you run a marathon, they don't care whether you walk for a minute and then run, it's how fast you get to the finish line.

What do you think? Can you compare times with someone who's doing an interval program (walk/run) if you're running the entire time?

New Shredheads, Find Strength

I'm really happy that there have been so many new people announcing that they're doing Shred lately...I even convinced my friend Val to start!  In fact, she called me the other day gasping for air, "Please tell me this gets easier!"  Ha ha, that Val, always a kidder!

Seriously, I love hearing what new Shredheads hear about it, so let's take a look at what Yvonne (from Joy Unexpected*) thought...

Boy, I would think someone with "Joy" in her blog title would have been a little more positive with her review!  Although she does sound happier than anyone else I've heard saying haaaaaatttteeeee...it's like a beautiful song!  Maybe I'll do Shred to her review instead of the music it comes with.

But was Shred really that bad at the beginning?  Here's another review:

"Holy crap, this is embarrassing.  I’m amazed at how weak I am."
"[...] about the only things I felt good about were the jumping jacks and the fake jumprope. Everything else sucked."
"I’m not entirely sure I even have abs."
"YIKES!"

Oh, wait.  Ha ha, that was me on Day 1!

My point here is that nobody thinks it's easy (or fun) at the beginning.  It's hard.  Terribly hard.  Read through Kristen's old posts.  Read through my old posts.  But push through and it does get better. Or, if you're a pessimist like me, it gets less terrible.  On Day 3, I was still sore and tired, but I pointed out that "it feels good to finally be working out again."  Heck, the fact that I even made it to Day 3 speaks volumes.

And now, almost 3 months later, I'm still doing it.  And I love the results.  I haven't even let myself go like Kristen has!  (I'm only brave enough to say that because we live in different states.)

There's one fond memory I have to share from when I was starting Shred.  On her Day 5, Kristen wrote:
"Imagine that Anita and her stomach actually stretched to have three babies. If she can look like that. SO CAN YOU."

I believed that.  Not the "so can you" part, that would be too sappy.  I mean I believed the whole Anita had 3 babies part!  Maybe I was oxygen-deprived, I don't know, but I thought Kristen got this factoid from the DVD somewhere (I was still doing this On Demand).  Since then I think about that and laugh EVERY time I do Shred. 

Oh, it might look like I'm sweating and swearing, but I promise I'm laughing on the inside.

*Thanks for letting me use your video, Yvonne!

- Bill

So, how are all the new Shredheads doing?  Send us your links or post in the comments!  And make sure you keep us updated on twitter (#shredheads) too and join the Shredheads Twibe.