Before the Beginning:
Technically, my five-week program started on July 4. That is not really where this story starts.

About a month earlier, I had already tried to start running again. I downloaded Runna, picked a beginner plan, and did what I have a tendency to do when I feel motivated.

I went too hard too quickly.

On June 2, I completed a 1.61-mile walk/run workout. Two days later, I did another 1.34 miles.

The overall paces were nothing crazy because the workouts included walking, but the running portions were much faster than the “conversational pace” the program was asking for.

At the time, I was not thinking much about heart rate, training zones, or whether I was building an aerobic base.

I was thinking about running.

So I ran.

My foot eventually gave me some feedback.

Week 0:
I started getting what felt like a plantar fasciitis flare-up.

It would have been easy to ignore it and keep going. I had just started something new, I was motivated, and the last thing I wanted to do was stop almost immediately.

But I also knew where that road could lead.

If I turned a small problem into a real injury, there would not be much of a running program left to worry about.So I backed off.

I rested and started looking at what I could change before trying again.

One of those changes was shoes. I picked up a pair of Brooks Ghost 18s and decided I was going to ease back into running instead of simply picking up where I left off.

The other change was a little more expensive.

I bought a Garmin Forerunner 970. Part of that was a gift to myself for making Master Sergeant. I had worked hard for the promotion, and I wanted to get myself something I would actually use.

But there was another reason too.

I wanted some external buy-in. I know myself well enough to know that motivation comes and goes. Spending that kind of money on a running watch gave me another reason to stick with this.

I did not want to look at an expensive Garmin sitting on my dresser six months later and realize I had used it for three weeks.

It was basically self-imposed accountability.

I had bought the watch. I had bought the shoes.

Now I need to use them.

Testing Things Again:
By June 29, I was testing the waters.

I ran one mile to the gym at a 12:55 pace.

Then I walked home. That probably sounds insignificant, but looking back, I think the walk home mattered almost as much as the run.

A few weeks earlier, my instinct had been to keep pushing.

This time, I was willing to let a walk just be a walk.

The next day, Runna put me into a structured Return to Running workout.

Five minutes walking. Six repetitions of 0.2 miles running with 90 seconds of walking between them. Five minutes walking to finish.

The entire workout was 2.38 miles in just under 38 minutes.

The interesting part is that my actual running intervals averaged somewhere around an 11:23 pace.

Even while I was trying to be more controlled, that was where my body naturally wanted to go.

Four days later, on July 4, I started what I now consider Week 1.

I had new shoes, a new watch, a different plan, and a little more respect for what my foot had already told me.

This time, I wanted to do more than start.

I wanted to finish.

July 4 – Starting Again:
The first workout was simple.

Five minutes walking, four 0.2-mile runs at a conversational pace with 90 seconds of walking between them, then a five-minute cooldown.

The full workout came out to about 1.68 miles.

My average heart rate was 145. My max was around 187.

And even though Runna kept using the words “conversational pace,” my running portions kept creeping toward the 10 to 11-minute range.

I had changed the shoes. I had changed the plan. Apparently, I had forgotten to replace the part of my brain that still wanted to run too fast.

Learning That Walking Counts:
The next morning, I did another walk/run session on the way to the chapel and walked home afterward.

The full outing ended up just under four miles.

I only ran for about 14 minutes. I walked for more than 52.

That might be one of the biggest differences between this attempt and some of my previous ones.

I was becoming okay with walking.

The full session averaged 141 beats per minute, and most of it stayed in the lower heart-rate zones.

Every time I started running, though, the graph told a different story.

My heart rate climbed. Then I walked, recovered, and did it again.

I was starting to see that the overall pace on the screen did not necessarily tell me how hard the running portions actually were.

My First ‘Easy’ Run:
July 6 was supposed to be my first easy continuous run back.

The workout could not have been much simpler.

Five minutes walking. Run 0.4 miles at a conversational pace. Five minutes walking.

I ran the 0.4 miles at roughly a 9:54 pace.

So much for conversational.

It was also about 86 degrees outside, which certainly did not help my heart rate.

It climbed into the upper 180s.

The weird part was that I felt good. Really good.

I rated the workout a 3 out of 10 and marked that I felt very strong afterward.

That was probably one of the first times I started noticing a disconnect.

My brain was saying, “That felt fine.”

My Garmin was saying, “You might want to look at this.”

An Actually Easy Day:
On July 7, I did not run. I walked for about 49 minutes and covered roughly 2.7 miles.

My average heart rate was 126, and almost the entire walk stayed in Garmin’s first two heart-rate zones.

Nothing exciting happened. No personal record. No hard effort. Just walking.

A month earlier, I probably would not have considered that much of a workout.

I was starting to understand that not every day needed to be hard to count.

Longer Intervals, Same Problem:
By July 9, Runna had progressed me to two 0.6-mile running intervals.

Still at a conversational pace.

The first came in at 10:27 per mile. The second was 11:27.

Somewhere in those intervals, Garmin gave me new personal records for both the kilometer and mile.

My 1K came in at 6:31. My mile was 11:16.

That sounds slow until you remember what the workout was supposed to be. Easy for your heart.

My average heart rate for the full session was 159. It peaked above 190.

Garmin classified the primary benefit as threshold work.

I rated the workout an 8 out of 10. Very hard.

I also marked that I felt very strong.

That combination started showing up a lot.

I was not finishing these workouts feeling weak or defeated. I was capable of doing them.

They were just costing me a lot more effort than an easy run probably should.

More Data Than I Knew What To Do With:
By July 10, the Garmin was starting to learn enough about me to generate numbers I had never really paid attention to before.

It estimated my running lactate threshold around:182 beats per minute at a 9:17 per mile, generating 355 watts of energy.

I am not treating those numbers like they came from a laboratory. They were Garmin estimates based on the data it had collected.

But suddenly I had information.

A lot of it. Heart-rate zones. Power. Cadence. Stride length. Training effect. Recovery. Lactate threshold.

Some of it I understood. Some of it I absolutely did not.

That day was another hot one, around 88 degrees, and I finished 2.62 miles of combined walking and running.

The actual running portions totaled about 1.4 miles at roughly an 11:10 pace.

Average heart rate was 155. Max was around 190.

I rated it a 7 out of 10. Very hard.

And once again, I marked that I felt very strong.

I also stepped on the scale around this point.187.8 pounds. The body-composition estimate showed about 21% body fat.

I was not starting this program with a goal of crash dieting or obsessing over the scale. I mainly wanted a baseline.

If things changed over the next few months, I wanted to know where I actually started.

Finishing Week 1:
Saturday, July 11, was the biggest running day of the week.

The full workout was 2.86 miles.

For the first time, I accumulated two full miles of running during the session.

Those two miles took about 23 minutes, which put the running pace around 11:35 per mile.

A week earlier, I was doing 0.2-mile intervals.

Now I had two miles of running under me.

That felt like progress.

But there was another number that mattered. I rated the workout a 9 out of 10. Extremely hard.

My average heart rate was 160. My max was around 190.

And, somehow, I still marked that I felt very strong afterward.

That probably sums up Week 1 better than anything else.

I was capable of doing the work.

I was making progress.

But I was doing almost everything harder than I probably needed to.

What I Learned:
Going into this, I thought the challenge was going to be learning how to run again.

Week 1 taught me something different.

I needed to learn how to slow down.

That sounds simple. Just run slower.

Except every time I tried to settle into a comfortable jogging stride, my pace naturally fell somewhere around the 10:30 to 11:30 range.

Trying to force myself significantly slower felt awkward.

So instead of immediately solving the problem, I started learning to use the walk breaks.

Run naturally. Walk. Let the heart rate come down. Then run again.

I did not understand heart-rate training yet.

I did not know what all the Garmin numbers meant.

I definitely had not figured out what “easy” was supposed to feel like.

But I had finished the first week.

My foot was holding up.

I was paying attention.

And for the first time in a while, I was not trying to rush toward wherever I thought I should already be.

I was starting where I actually was.

That was enough.

Next – Week 2