Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with c25k

Please help me identify this song

TestamentToGrace — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 09:12:59 -0800

I really love a song included in Richard Ullrey's C25k week1 podcast but I can't identify it. I'd really like to buy this song as well as explore other music by the artist if i could only figure out who she is. Can you help? Things i have tried:

1. Shazam app for recognizing the tune when played (worked on other songs from his podcasts)

2. Googling some of the lyrics:
waking up in the afternoon smiling in my bed
wondering if i'm in my own ?? or my ??
fighting fighting the thoughts running running in my head
waking up in the afternoon smiling in my bed

so please make up your mind
i don't have much time

do you want me to stay
or should i leave you alone now
do you want me to leave
or do you want me to (fight love?)

i don't feel any shame
for me it's always the same
do you want me to leave
do you want me to stay
do you want me to leave

3. emailing Robert Ullrey (no reply)

4. Asking on several fitness forums/c25k groups

You are my only hope hivemind! I've uploaded the podcast for you here:
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BxBkr9ujJ2pDcWJRT1Z1eTFNM0U/edit?usp=sharing

Song starts at 13:45.

C25K with a torn ACL?

OrangeDisk — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 11:19:08 -0800

Would it be crazy to do C25K with a torn ACL? I do not plan to get surgery to repair the ACL. Background: I have a torn ACL in one knee, and a once-bruised MCL in the same knee. I have seen an orthopedist and been going to physical therapy. Given my lifestyle ("lightly active" -- I walk 11,000 steps a day, do cardio machines 3x a week, and 2 hours of ecstatic dance a week) and age (43), my ortho left it up to me whether to get surgery. I decided not to because of the recovery time and because the tear to my ACL was not severe. Physical therapy has gone well, and I'm at the point where neither the ortho or PT think I need to keep going.

Before this injury, I had planned to do C25K with my dog. She's young and really likes to run and never gets the chance -- and I could use the extra exercise. Plus, if I'm ever going to take up running, now is probably the time. I'm not getting any younger.

Question: Would it be crazy to do C25K with this injury? My leg feels strong and stable, but I don't want to injure it further. My ortho and PT both said that it's really up to me -- they expressed no concerns about me doing it and basically said that I could try it and should stop if my knee hurts at all.

YANAD/YANMD, but what do you think? And why?

What is this perpetual bruise-like pain on my shin?

Trespassers William — Sat, 26 Jan 2013 18:52:18 -0800

This is an issue that I've been aware of for years, but have never investigated it with a doctor because it usually only hurts when I put pressure in one particular spot. (Hey, doc, it hurts when I do this...) The spot is 3-5 inches above my ankle, along the very edge of my shin bone on the inside of my left leg. It's very tender, hurts quite a bit if that one spot is knocked or if I push on it. There's no bruise visible on the skin. I'm a relatively healthy male: 30 years old, 5'8", 150 pounds. Mostly sedentary. I lift weights or jog sporadically. I just started Couch to 5K (again) and stopped after three weeks, which is when the pain/bruising flared up last time, about a year ago. There are all sorts of symptoms, enough for me to be sure that I have really crappy feet/calves but beyond that I have no idea what's going on; which issues are connected or what.

Pretty much any time I jog, I notice that the bruise comes back. This time:

--First week of running: not really any pain while running and the bruised feeling, like I said, only bother me if it comes into contact with something.

--Second week: calves became incredibly tight while running.

--Third week: calves and arches were tight and burned intensely and my heels hurt too. All pain subsided immediately after finishing the run.

Other info:

--I've been running on asphalt streets in my neighborhood, up and downhill, which I know isn't great. (But my wife has been doing it with me -- she has never run in her life, thought she would absolutely HATE it, and has been doing great with no pain whatsoever -- so I think it's mostly me and not the running environment.)

--I have pretty flat feet and have been using green Superfeet inserts in a pair of Asics Duomax running shoes. Which actually made my arches hurt like the dickens on the last run I did.

--My feet start to ache quite a bit in the arch and heel when I'm standing for long periods of time. I noticed that I tend to roll my feet a lot while standing and stand on the outside edge of the foot.

So, I guess I have a few questions (YANAD, YANMD):

A) what is this most likely to be? (shin splints? a bone bruise? a tear in the muscle?) Is the bruise likely related to the other pains while running?
B) what are the best options -- I don't have health insurance at the moment -- for me to get this looked at (should I go pay out of pocket to see a sports doctor? a gym trainer? a physical therapist? I have no clue.)
C) If I had to try to fix this myself without a costly professional diagnosis, what exercises could I be doing to rehabilitate and not further strain the weak parts of my feet/calves? Should I realize the obvious truth that I should never run ever or am I just doing it wrong?

Thanks MetaFilter!

I'm a newbie jogger. I have questions.

Eyebrows McGee — Wed, 26 Sep 2012 08:19:04 -0800

New jogger needs advice: achy joints, sore feet. I'm using a jogging stroller and fairly restricted to road/sidewalk surfaces in a small geographic area. Background: I had two kids, two years apart, with two terrible pregnancies and two exhausting year-long breastfeedings. I had plantar fasciitis during my second pregnancy and it took FOREVER to heal, and my joints were all very loose during both pregnancies and while breastfeeding. After four solid years of hormones and growing other humans, I'm in terrible shape, and carrying extra baby weight. I started walking a lot this summer, and after the baby weaned, I started "pre-couch-to-5K-ing," because I was not in good enough shape for week one of getting your ass off the couch. I had to work up to being able to manage all of week one. So, I did that, achieved week one, sprained my knee, waited for it to heal, started over. Which is where I am now:

I have been going for about three weeks on a couch-to-5K program. (The first week and a half was working back up to completing all of week 1, then three times through the week 1 workout. Now I am on week 2.) I am training three times a week, MWF. I walk my older child to preschool and then the younger one and I go jogging. So I must use a jogging stroller, which means I am restricted to roads and sidewalks, and in a fairly small geographical area near the preschool. (Because I know jogging on a track or grass might help some of this, but I can only jog if I have the jogging stroller, and only during this time after I drop off #1.) The second week is 6 intervals of 90 seconds jogging and 2 minutes walking, which I am just about managing.

Here are my problems/questions:
1) My feet had been doing fine for the last two months or so that I've been at this (I am wearing sneakers, from a running store, that I only use for jogging, so they're getting 48 hours between wearings), but suddenly today they hurt like crazy. I had to walk the last jogging interval because they hurt so bad. What do I do? Do I not jog? Different shoes? Insoles? Doctor?

2) I stretch before and after, and I'm usually fine most of the day after I jog, but in the evening my muscles and joints will start to ache and my recently-sprained knee gets very painful, so much that I'll put a knee brace on. The knee is usually fine the next morning, but my joints will ache all day the next day. I've been taking Aleve for the aches when they're bad. Will this go away with time, or is this a sign I'm doing something very wrong? What stretches should I be doing that I might not be doing?

(I know that I'm carrying too much weight and that is not thrilling for my joints, but I don't think that gets better unless I start getting in shape and losing weight. I know something like swimming might be good, but my only option for consistent exercise right now is walking or jogging, and I really want to do this couch-to-5K.)

3) My inner thighs burn like they are on FIRE. (Okay, a little less so today.) Is this normal for beginners? Normal for a jogging stroller? (More upright posture, legs doing more work because torso is fairly still.) I assume if this is normal it'll fade in time as I get stronger.

4) What should I be doing on my off-days?

I have been trying to peruse Runner's World's website and forums, but there is so MUCH stuff and most of the beginner's stuff I'm finding is either way too basic (Did you know humans have to drink water sometimes?) or too advanced (I have been jogging in a 65-RX27-L14 shoe and am thinking of switching to a 65-RX28-L15 shoe ...)

Should I slow down and only train twice a week? Try different shoes? Change my posture? Stretch better? Halp. I also appreciate any other tips for new runners you might have.

I can go see my general practitioner if I need to, though it always takes a couple weeks to get in. I am eating sensibly. Normal days involve a mix of chasing kids around/walking at parks/etc., running errands, and sitting reading books/supervising indoor playtime.

The other thing is, this is a secret. Only the baby knows we're jogging and he only says like 10 words and none of them are "jog." None of my friends or family (including my husband!) know, because people have been teasing me for as long as I can remember that I'm clumsy and unathletic (true!), and in self-defense I developed a sense of humor about it, so other people feel okay making fun of me about it, so whenever I start doing any kind of exercise, people either make fun of me for it, or make a super-big deal about my doing something so fish-out-of-water, and I'm not comfortable with either reaction. So I feel like I need to get achieve a certain level of competence at this before letting other people know so that it's a done deal and I'm ALREADY a jogger, not just TRYING TO BE a jogger. Also thinking of myself as a secret ninja jogger makes jogging more fun. But it makes it hard to get advice!

Knee feels fine now. How long should I wait before I go back to running?

usonian — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 06:19:56 -0800

About a 10 days ago I tweaked my knee while running. It feels fine now. How long should I wait before I go back to running? I am not looking for a diagnosis (you are not my doctor, trainer, physical therapist, etc.) but I figure relevant details can't hurt:

By 'running', I mean the intermittent running/walking required by the early weeks of the Couch to 5K program. Running on dirt and asphalt. During week two both of my knees were feeling a little bit sore, but it felt like a general "my knees are just not used to this activity yet" soreness. After day 3 of week 2, though, it was pretty clear I had done something to my left knee. It hurt to bend my knee sharply while lifting my thigh in certain ways - the best example I can think of was trying to pull my foot out of a shoe.

I've taken a break from the program, and although I haven't tried running on it yet the knee feels pretty much fine now. In the meantime I went to a running store and bought a good pair of shoes after a simple visual gait analysis, which will hopefully help me avoid future issues; I'd been running in a pair of cheapo big box store sneakers, and the new ones feel noticeably better even when just walking.

My basic question is this: Is there any prevailing wisdom is as far as getting back to running after an injury? Should I try walking a couple of miles first and see how that goes? Wait another few days? Wait another week? I've spent some time poking around previous AskMeFi questions and the internet in general, but while there are plenty of "Don't run through pain!" answers I'm not finding any rules of thumb about how long not to run. I'm eager to get back to the program (I'll probably do week 2 over again) but I don't want to set myself back further if I'm not 100%.

Never too fat to run

KathrynT — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 09:55:59 -0800

What can I do to strengthen my knees and ankles to lesson the likelihood of a running injury? Having hit my first two fitness goals (Don't gain back any of the weight I lost while I was pregnant and get my cholesterol & blood sugar into normal levels), I'm now training for a sprint triathlon. I have a year, and I suspect I'll need every day. But while my swimming and biking training is going really well and I'm making a lot of progress, my running training is hampered by my weight and its effect on my knees and ankles.

I weigh 235 pounds and I'm 5'2". Despite good, varied, high-intensity workouts 5 times a week and controlling my calories and carbs, the weight is not coming off very quickly, for what we're pretty sure are complicated endocrinological reasons, including low thyroid, sleep deprivation, nursing, & others. I'm doing c25k and I LOVE it, but every time I try to move from week 1 (alternating 60 seconds of running with 90 seconds of walking) to week 2 (90 seconds of running and 2 minutes of walking), my knees and ankles begin to hurt.

Are there strength training or other exercises I can do to help my knees and ankles be up to this task? I have a team of dedicated professionals working with me on my fitness, so unless you're one of them, please don't tell me that if I just do XYZ I'll lose weight and then I'll be fine. I need strategies to make it possible to run at the weight I'm at now.

Next goal after C25K?

queens86 — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 11:12:37 -0800

What to do after finishing Couch to 5K? I ran in my first 5K last Saturday, and finished in about 30 minutes. I'm running around 10 minute miles, and I typically run 9-12 miles (three or four 30-min runs) a week. I've been running for about three months total, and just in the past couple weeks has a three-mile run started to feel 'easy.'

I want to increase my mileage (not too concerned about my speed) and start training for a 10K. What's the best way to do this? I'm not in a rush or trying to hit any deadline, I just want to challenge myself a little more.

I found the B210K online, but the workouts seem super long and I don't really want to go back to walking in between running; I'd rather run straight through. What's a reasonable amount to increase my mileage/time by every week? I'd rather go by time than by distance because that's easier for me to track. Should I increase up to, say, 33 mins for a week straight, then 36 mins, etc, or is it better to do something like two 3-mile runs and one 4 mile run?

I looked at Hal Higdon's training page, but I don't want to do all the cross-training, strength training etc-- just run.

Thanks! I'd love to hear where other people went after their first 5K :)

Can I finish my C25K?

queens86 — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 10:29:07 -0800

Do these sound like shin splints? I have been doing the Couch to 5K running program, and today I am supposed to run week 6, day 3 (25 minute run). I've been running in cheap tennis shoes I bought at a Target-like store nearby. They weren't sized or selected for my feet. I run on a concrete loop in an enclosed park in my apartment complex.

I stretch before and after running and both warm down and cool up by walking. Just today, I noticed a sort of sharp, shooting pain, only in my left leg, on the front of my shin bone. It's just right in the middle, a spot about halfway between my ankle and my knee. I only notice it when I walk, and it was only bothering me for a few minutes this morning and again when I got up to walk after eating lunch. It doesn't hurt when I flex my foot up or down.

Do these sound like shin splints? I am a new runner, so I don't really know how they feel. I don't know if I over- pronate. I REALLY don't want to stop running and fall behind in all the progress I made, and I am really excited to run a 5K when I go home (I'm abroad) in three weeks. I'll be massively dissapointed if anything sidlines me!

What can I do now to prevent/stop them from progressing, besides stopping the C25K? As soon as I make it home I can buy real running shoes and run on a better surface, but for the next few weeks, I am pretty much stuck with what I have.

Any help is much appreciated!

Week 4 or Weak 4?

Medieval Maven — Tue, 10 May 2011 12:04:31 -0800

I feel like I'm doomed to suck at running, but that's probably irrational. Help me figure out what is up with my workout so I can stop feeling like I'm stuck. So! Like half the earth I've decided I'm REALLY GETTING IN SHAPE THIS YEAR! Except I kind of have been. Exciting right? But I'm hitting a wall and I don't know what to do.

I've been using Robert Ullrey's podcasts to do Couch to 5K. Everything was hunky dory until week 4, when a number of things happened:

1) I had my IUD replaced, which was not comfortable. This slowed me down but I managed to do my workouts for the week.
2) Ramp-up for my theater's show got real, and my hours got long.
3) so my eating habits and water consumption got wobbly and not as good.

All of this aside, I managed to make it through all of week 4 from April 25th through the end of that week, including the 20 minute run. When I tried to get through it during Hell Week (the next week, where we're in tech for the show every night and I'm DYING of TIRED), I got through day one and day two, but on the supposed 20-minute-run day, I just expired and did the day one work out again. I gave myself until today to get started with week 4 one more time, and while the day one work out I did could have been worse, it's surely not better. I cannot imagine trying to make it through day two any time soon, much less the 20 minute run portion.

So, questions, along with complicating factors:
1) I am not fast. I am not doing the distance the C25K program calls for, just the time. Should I stay on week 4 anyway until I get the distance down, or just go for time endurance?
2) I have a wobbly right knee. I have compression pants that have knee support, so my knee does NOT hurt, but weirdly my foot is starting to get twingey on that leg.
2a) so, do I need new shoes? my shoes are not new but haven't been used much and were properly selected by a professional a couple years ago. I doubt they are thrashed.
2b) is this just because that's my weaker leg, so my muscles are all freaking out?
3) should I have lost this much ground to sleep deprivation and non-ideal diet? I haven't been out eating chicken wings every night, but my carb consumption, which is typically low, has been inflated (sandwiches are convenient).
4) anything else I should know about why this might suck so much right now?

I felt SO MUCH BETTER during the first three weeks, and I want to continue with this, but I'm feeling so beat down by my sudden screeching halt in progress. Advice? (FWIW I run on a treadmill and for the foreseeable future that will continue.)

How can I easily switch between tracks while jogging Couch to 5k?

tomble — Wed, 04 May 2011 19:58:55 -0800

I'm doing Couch to 5k, and I want to be able to easily switch between 'walking' music and 'running' music. So, I'm working on C25k again. Some time ago I worked out music that matched the BPM of walking, and that of running, so I can walk or jog in perfect time to the beat. This really helps me keep a sustainable pace rather than exploding my heart by running too fast.

What I'd like to do is queue up a 'walking' playlist and a 'running' playlist and have a way to switch between them as I go, so that I hit a button, the 'walking' track pauses and the 'running' track starts, and vice versa.

I've looked and looked but can't find anything suitable. Other than the tedious process of building a single track in Audacity, how can I achieve this? Ideally it would be something that runs on Windows or an Iphone.

To avoid confusion, here's the scenario

* Walking, while music from the 'walking' playlist is going.
* 90 seconds elapse, at which time I hit a button
* The walking music pauses, the 'running' playlist starts playing
* 60 seconds elapse. I hit the button again.
* "Running" music pauses, walking music starts again.

repeat until gasping for breath and sweaty.

There are a bunch of iphone apps for C25k, but while many support a playlist, they don't seem to have the option for 'walking' and 'running' playlists which switch over as required.

Thanks, all!

Too much, or just right?

KathrynT — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 12:11:49 -0800

Yesterday, I stepped up the intensity of my near-daily workout, and I'm really feeling it. I was ravenous all day yesterday, and particularly ravenous for the kinds of high-carb high-fat foods I've worked so hard to cut out of my diet. Also, I was very brain-tired; I was foggy and had trouble concentrating all day. Are these post-workout effects a sign of overdoing it, or of doing it right? I'm roughly a hundred pounds overweight and two months postpartum. While I was pregnant, I lost about thirty-five pounds, and I was determined to make a real difference in my health, for my own sake and for the sake of my kids. I've continued making an effort to eat lower carb, and on the advice of my nutritionist, I've been making a real commitment to getting to the gym five days a week, though in practice it's more like 3-4 days.

Because I have an infant in the gym day care, I can't do a truly extended workout. (Particularly right now, when he's literally eating every hour, hour and a half.) What I've been doing is 30 minutes of cardio + a five minute cooldown, and then one 12-rep set each on five or six different weight machines, depending on what I'm working on. I do lower body weights once a week, upper body and core weights each twice a week, roughly. I've been doing my cardio on the elliptical machine, aiming for a heart rate at 75-85% of max. But one day all the "good" elliptical machines were taken, and I decided to try the first week's workout of the C25K on the treadmill.

That's when I discovered that I can't jog for sixty seconds at a shot without feeling like I want to die. That's right, I'm too out of shape for the "no previous exercise apart from Wii Bowling" level of the C25K. What I can do is run for thirty seconds and then walk for two and a half minutes, and so that's what I did. Running for thirty seconds puts me at 90-95% my max heart rate, it recovers to my "normal" level after about 90 seconds.

After a half hour of that, I felt OK -- it was definitely a bigger deal than the elliptical workout, but I wasn't so exhausted that I couldn't do my weight routine as normal. But all day yesterday, I was really, REALLY hungry. My normal lunch? Totally didn't touch it. I could have had a cheeseburger for an afternoon snack, cheerfully. I took seconds at dinner because I was just so fucking hungry. Not only that, but I had trouble thinking and concentrating all day long, like I forgot how to use the debit card POS system at the grocery store where I've shopped approximately half a million times. Also just now I spelled "use" as "youse."

So, from what little I know about nutrition and metabolism, I'm guessing that I have a normal reserve of blood glycogen or whatever that my usual exercise routine uses up a lot of but doesn't exhaust. And I'm guessing that my workout yesterday -- which might sound pathetic, but I tell you what, YOU try going for a jog while carrying twelve gallons of milk -- was enough to not just exhaust those stores but to push me beyond some metabolic point. So my question is, should I cut back? Or is this exactly the sort of thing I need to do in order to poke my liver into getting less stingy with the fat-burning already? I did it again today, and again, I'm frickin RAVENOUS, already.

Probably-relevant information: I'm nursing a two month old baby, who eats about one million^H^H^H twelve times a day. My last fasting glucose reading, a couple of years ago, was 103. I'm 5'2" and weigh 235 pounds. I am clinically hypothyroid, and take 112mcg of Synthroid a day, which keeps my TSH at about 0.8. While I'd like to continue losing weight, my real looming goal is to reverse this insulin resistance and avoid ever getting Type II diabetes.

Newbie needs tips for training beyond a 10K to a half-marathon

Foam Pants — Mon, 27 Dec 2010 01:56:32 -0800

My friend and I are in the middle of C25K and want to go all the way to a half-marathon. She would like to get to a full marathon. We are getting conflicting advice on how to do this. Do you have any ideas? We are using this app to do the C25K and will be using this app to get to 10K. After that, methods to train up to a half-marathon vary widely. Some have us doing short runs six days a week, one even told us we should be able to run for 30 minutes for the last six months before even attempting. If we can go from 0 to 10K in about 16 weeks, can we double that distance in another? Is a marathon attainable by the end of summer and how should we get there? My goal is to run the Klondike Road Relay in 2011 but my friend is very serious about a marathon.

What to do on the days I don't run?

Biblio — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 06:59:48 -0800

Doing Couch to 5k 3 days a week...what should I do the other 4? I started C25k a few weeks ago. It took me 2 weeks to get through week 1, but I started week 2 yesterday and passed with flying colors. I really like the way running feels, but I know you shouldn't do it every day. So I am looking for suggestions of other workouts to do on my non-running days.

Some details: I'm a 36 year old woman. I am 5'4" and 196 lbs. My goal is to lose 40 lbs in a sensible fashion. I don't currently belong to a gym, though I may join the Y in the fall. I have a treadmill, a Wii Fit and some yoga DVDs. I want to do something that will improve my overall fitness and help me on my runs...I'm just not sure what will give me the best result.

So I've mastered Sitonmyassana

Eudaimonia — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 10:57:42 -0800

I'm losing the stress with yoga, but how to lose the pounds, too? Similar to this thread, I’m wondering if my Ashtanga yoga practice is enough to get healthy and lose weight (I’m 5’4’’, around 160ish – I’ve lost almost 15 pounds since the beginning of the year with Weight Watchers and moderate exercise, but have hit a solid plateau for the last few weeks. I need the scale to MOVE. Yes I know that weight isn’t everything, I feel better, look better too, but 160ish is still too heavy and I would like to get healthy.)

Reasons I’m not a fan of “traditional” forms of cardio: gym membership + yoga membership is COSTLY, especially to someone unemployed and fresh out of grad school. I tried to do C25K and start a running program, but I have bad knees and am in pain for a good 2 days afterwards, at least (yes, I have special running shoes purchased from a specialty store, and I stretch a lot). Kind of a Catch-22 as I get the feeling that once I lose more weight I can run again with less pain (less stress on the joints?). Plus running seems to counteract the effects of my yoga practice and I’m pretty devoted to my yoga as it feels like I’m actually learning something, and its keeping me sane while I search for a job.

I’m going to yoga 3-5x times a week and although my heart is racing for a good part of class, I don’t know if its enough cardio. Will hot yoga (Baptiste or Bikram) be useful cardio alternatives? I’m never sure that the kind of elevated heart rate you get from being active in a hot environment is the same kind of elevated heart rate you get when you’re engaged in something like jogging or interval training. Basically, are all forms of cardio equal?

And if any of you have managed to lose weight with yoga, how did you do it? If you think I should just suck it up and try out running again, what is an appropriate way to incorporate both yoga and running without overdoing it or hurting myself?

Will my heart explode?

bonheur — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 09:26:10 -0800

When I jog, my heart rate goes to 195 beats per minute. Is that bad? I've recently started jogging, following the couch to 5k program. I've led a moderately active life thus far, but I've never been an athlete and I'm about 30 lbs overweight. I bought a heart rate monitor and wore it during my last run. I was surprised to see some very high numbers on the monitor. My resting heart rate (HR) is 65. I thought my max was 185. Brisk walking brought my heart up to about 140, and when I started to jog (slowly!) the monitor hit 195! I can jog for about three minutes at that level before I have to walk again.

I'm definitely huffing and puffing and sweating and red in the face at that level, but I don't feel like I'm going to barf or die. Now, here's my question: According to the materials that came with my monitor, I should be training in the 65-85% zone. Does this mean I can't run at this fitness level and should just be walking? Am I harming myself in some way by pushing my body and heart too hard during exercise? How long will it typically take for my heart to adjust to the strain of running and slow down a bit? Tips, thoughts, experiences all welcome. Thanks!

Too heavy for Couch to 5k?

aebaxter — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 17:35:15 -0800

I just had a doctor tell me I'm too heavy to run the Couch to 5k program. Is this really true? I'm 25/F, 5'6, 240 lbs with a sedentary job and no exercise routine to speak of for the past 6 years. About 3 weeks ago, I decided I was fed up and I started the Couch to 5k program at home on a treadmill. I made it through week 3 feeling great, still motivated and really enjoying the challenge. I was also doing lighter walk/runs and weights on the in between days of the program.

In order to work out with a friend, I started running outside at the track. Within 2 workouts running outdoors, I started having crippling pain in my knees. Worried I'd injured myself, I went to an osteopathic doctor. She told me that I was "100 lbs too heavy to be running" and that it was an unacceptable form of exercise for me. She said that "all the extra weight had pounded my knees into a severe sprain." She told me to stop eating too much (without even asking about my diet habits, but oh well) and to stop exercising period until my knees healed, and then to only do low-impact exercise.

I agree that my knees are injured (obviously, the pain tells me that), but is it really that I'm just too heavy to run? Have others been successful doing the Couch to 5k program beginning at a similar weight? Is my being overweight truly the problem, or did I just overdo it by exercising with a bit too much zeal on the off days instead of resting as is recommended with the Couch to 5k program?