Here’s how a self-described ‘couch potato’ trained to finish the NYC marathon
Here’s how self-described “couch potato” Joel Cohen trained to finish the NYC marathon. He chronicles his training journey and best tips and tricks for regular, non-runners to attempt marathon running in his new book “How to Lose a Marathon”.
Following is a transcript of the video.
Before I even started running, most of my fitness regimen was my arm muscles needed to open a bag of chips. But, I then read this book “Born to Run” by Christopher McDougall, and I started thinking about running and then I took the next step which is actually running.
Well, when I first got into running, I — my diet did not change. Actually, running was a great excuse to keep eating what I wanted because I thought, I’m gonna run it off anyhow. So it was just pure bacon diet. But, I ran — the very first run I did was a 5K, the first organized run I did was a 5K. Just to experience what’s that like to be in a race with other people. And I lost that as well, miserably, setting a pattern of consistency I’ve kept up to this day.
The one thing I definitely found I relied on immensely was this app called RunKeeper which is a free app, mostly, on your phone. And it literally … I never consulted a coach or anybody else really to tell me how to prepare for a marathon and it literally took me from never having run all the way to running a marathon just by telling me the schedule of what to run every day. Another important piece of gear is maybe surprising to some people is shoes. You put them on your feet and run in them.
You know, just thinking about running a marathon, I guess I never anticipated that, hey this proves what an idiot I am. There’s a lot of running involved. Like, you know, when I ran the marathon it took almost four and a half hours, but you build up steadily to longer and longer runs to prepare for that. And at some point, you’re running three hours without a break which is — that’s a lot of running. So I didn’t think about that. I mean, it’s pleasurable in a way, and it’s very peaceful and solitary, but it’s a lot of time devoted to running.
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