Jogging

I've been thinking about taking up jogging for awhile.

This idea originated a couple years ago when, for a month or so, I had an irregular heartbeat and shortness of breath. My doctor ran a EKG and found something "abnormal," so they sent me to the hospital in Owosso so that they could run a stress test. I had to run on a treadmill with a bunch of cords and stuff stuck to me, during which the doctors kept pointing at my overweight stomach. After the test was over, I was out of breath, and they concluded that I was severly out of shape and needed to start exercising.

Finally, about 3 weeks ago, I decided to start jogging. Based on the experiences I've had so far, I have a few suggestions for anyone that is thinking about starting. I'm not reinventing the wheel here - you could probably google "how to start jogging" and you'd probably get the same suggestions - but this is just my personal experience:

- You need a warm up/cool down period, at least 3 minutes for each. That's a given.
- You need a good breathing pattern. What's working pretty good right now is inhaling every 4 steps, then exhaling every 4 steps. If you don't develop a pattern, you get side cramps. I've gotten some of those and they put a damper on the remainder of your jogging session.
- You need a routine. Pick a time when you're going to jog, and stick with it.
- Start by doing an even amount of jogging/walking. If you have lamp posts, walk to one, jog to the next. We don't have street lights in our neighborhood, so I started jogging for one minute, then walking the next.
- Set a goal, but be patient, and don't burn yourself out. I'm up to 2 minutes of jogging, one minute of walking. I'd like to run a few 5Ks next year, but I'm nowhere near that point yet. It's going to take me awhile to get there, but I'm not in any hurry.

I hope that helps. If you have any running ideas for me, or if there's something I'm doing that I shouldn't be, please let me know.