As Chad Fowler points out in his blog about the unofficial rubyconf 5k, the whole idea was born out of a conversation he and I were having about his new running habit, and how I’d been trying to get back into running for years and never had the right motivation. Well, there is little motivation to get back into it than helping to organize a 5k!

I just started back a little over a week ago and, this week, started the couch to 5k schedule. For those of you who have never run, or haven’t run in years, this schedule is absolutely fantastic.

It starts off with with alternating intervals of jogging for a minute and walking for 1.5 minutes for a total of 20 minutes. I immediately found that I was pushing much harder than normal for me during the 1 minute jogs, and after the 20 minutes I felt great! One week into this and I’m already jogging 8 minutes (sure, not in a row, but 8 minutes the 2nd week off the couch!).

Today I dragged my girlfriend along (she’s planning to run a 5k with me on Thanksgiving morning). Flor exercises regularly, but she is not a runner, yet she had no problem keeping up with me for these short intervals.

Of course I’m only a week into the schedule, and I’m sure it will get more challenging as the intervals get longer, but I’m pretty confident I’ll be able to keep up with the gradually increasing intensity.

So I encourage any of you who are attending RubyConf (or JRubyConf) to join us. We’ll have a website up with information and registration in a few weeks, but today is the day to start training! See you at the starting line!