Hello Coach Jay!

My name is Sylvia, I am 32 and living in the Northeast. I would like to start a running routine. However, running is new to me and quite honestly seems a little intimidating especially when I see others running with such ease and for long periods of time. I exercise moderately and I have no physical issues other than being overweight. I am looking for guidance on the best way to start so I don't go too fast and discourage myself.

So where and how do I start? My dream is to one day run a 5K, but at the moment I am not sure I could run down the block!

Thank you for your guidance,
Sylvia

Sylvia-

Thanks so much for the question! It seems to me that the way you feel about runners is the way I feel about musicians. They make it look so easy and the music just flows out of them, yet we never had a chance to see them in their first music lesson where they were "less than perfect." So, you should feel good about the fact that a) you want to exercise and b) you're motivated enough to write in.

Two big steps down, one more big one to go. And that is to walk. Humans crawl, then walk, then run. Adults want to go out and run, run, run. I love the self-motivation and I love the willingness to be uncomfortable, but as I often say on this site, your bones, muscles, ligaments and tendons will take a while train, yet your heart and lungs can gain fitness quickly. What that means is that you could get a foot injury or lower leg injury in the first few weeks, even days, of running if you're not careful. But the flip side is that if you're willing to walk a minute brisk, then run gently for 30 seconds, and repeat that for 20 minutes every other day, then you can progress the next week to 25 minutes, then 30, etc., so that five or six weeks from now you're at 40 minutes every other day then you'll be ready to train for a 5k.

What you probably don't want to hear is that it's baby steps for those first six weeks. It's not as cool as bopping along on a run, passing people and smiling, but if you're patient and you take the long view of your personal health, there is no doubt this is the only way to go.

And, if you want to run a 5k sooner rather than later, then you can follow our general strength videos and add those routines before and after your run. Once you can do the Lunge Warm-Up and Myrtl before your workout and then the Pedestal Routine and Myrtl after the workout you'll be that much closer to running that 5k.

I wish you the best Sylvia and have the courage to take baby steps.

-Jay

Coach Jay-

I was listening to NPR this week and heard a story about running barefoot. I don't know if Nike will allow you answer this question since it's a shoe company, but what do you think about this? Is it a fade or is it the wave of the future? Also, are people getting hurt when they do this? I'm really curious.

-James

James-
I heard that story too and I'm glad you brought it up. Not only is barefoot running being talked about on NPR, but barefoot running is by far the most discussed topic I've seen on Twitter (though obviously I tend to follow other running geeks like myself). And if you're reading this then Nike obviously doesn't mind if we discuss it.

Here's the deal. Barefoot running is must in my house…for our toddler. Conversely, I run in shoes and to be honest, I only run in the Nike Free once a week and it's always on my short run of the week. My daughter will have better proprioception than I because she rarely has shoes on in our house and even when the weather warms we have her in homemade moccasins. Why? I want her to have good proprioception and wearing shoes changes the neural feedback from the foot back to the spine, a good thing for athleticism down the road.

But most of us who grew up in western society in the last 100 years have had shoes on our feet every day. Couple that fact with the fact that most of us are carry a few extra pounds and you have a recipe for a fractured navicular bone, a weight bearing bone that is extremely difficult to heal (though I wouldn't go so far to say a fractured navicular means you'll never run again, though that's a concept that some runners believe). Plus, if you dive deeper into the research you'll see that most of the barefoot running advocates quickly shift the conversation to biomechanics and the fact that you will take shorter strides, making your run look more like a fun shuffle. Again, not a bad thing, but who teaches this to you? And will they be honest with you that you first need to lose 10 pounds before you can safely try barefoot running? If they're charging you to "learn to barefoot run" and "run naturally" then you need to be honest about the fact that there is a financial disincentive for them to be honest with you.

That said, part of the reason I don't run more miles per week in my Nike Free's is that I'm scared. I had a foot injury for close to three years and I simply enjoyed life less when I couldn't run. I'm the healthiest I've been running-wise for some time and while I could go on and on about why I think the Lunaracer might be a great training shoe for a fit, light runner (which I aspire to be), I cannot recommend that a serious runner try to run the majority of their volume barefoot.

And as I've said before, we are all well served by making the Nike Free a shoe we wear as much as possible when we're not running, and this relates back to my daughter. While all of us have feet and lower legs that could be stronger and more supple, the "next logical step" in that process is NOT to run barefoot for 3 miles but to walk 4 or 5 or even 10 miles in the Frees.

Obviously you can do a web search and find hundreds of people who will swear by running barefoot, but I'm not one of them.

Thanks for the question James.

Coach Jay coaches athletes at RunnersCoach.com and blogs at CoachJayJohnson.com. And don't forget, if you have training question for Coach Jay, email him here: coachjay@nike.com.

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