Mom's 5k Plan

I think I mentioned before that this summer I'll be training my mom for her first race ever - a 5k! I'm pretty excited to be on the other side of training but I'm also excited for her to take on this challenge. I picked out a race in September called the NOCC Race for Her 5k which benefits ovarian cancer. A good friend of my mom's actually passed away from this disease several years ago so it's kind of ironic that I chose this one for her!

Since my mom has never really done any running before (she does go to the gym and do weights) I want to start her off very gradually with walk/run intervals. Leading up to when official training begins, I'm having her walk 30 minutes 3-4 days a week to get her body used to longer physical activity. Then for the first week of training she'll be doing 1:4 run/walk intervals for a total of 30 minutes. Each workout will also begin with a 5 minute warm-up walk. The intervals will last for two weeks then the running will increase by one minute for another two weeks until eventually she is just running easy for 30 minutes straight. In the last week I have her doing 3 miles easy just to know that she can cover the distance before the race and build a little confidence. My plan has her run/walking 4 days a week, cross-training (probably weights) 2 days a week, and resting on Sundays. She also has some weight loss goals she'd like to accomplish and I think this plan will really help with that.

I am definitely no expert (in fact I've never "trained" anyone before!) so I welcome any input, advice, personal experience, etc. Does this plan look adequate? Doable for a beginner? Let me know! As I said before I'm really excited to be doing this with my mom and to be able to share my love of exercise and running with her! I'll be updating on how things are going once we get started next month!