Couch potato runner

My son's school is having a 5k charity run. The whole family is going to run. By that I mean me, my kids and my boyfriend as well as my ex husband and his wife I believe. It's in about 6 weeks. This is literally going to be a couch to 5K effort. The past few weeks I have been laying around a lot on the couch. I had the flu and then I was on "staycation." I was supposed to get a lot of things done around the house but that didn't happen. Plus in the last several years I have allowed myself to slump into a depression and have gained about about 30-35 pounds. So it's gonna take a lot of effort to get myself up and moving. But I've always found there is no better way to motivate myself than to sign up for an event like this.

I've never been a very good runner. My body just doesn't seem to be made for it. I have weak ankles, flat feet, and I get shin splints. Anyway, I have done a number of 5K runs in the past and even completed a triathlon once about 9 years ago.

Last time I ran a 5K I used an app called Running for Weight Loss. I couldn't get through the whole running plan however. I go to a point about half way through and found myself repeating the same workouts because I wasn't able to advance. There was too big of a jump from one week to the next. Anyway, it still helped me to complete my 5K. I usually walk/run. I'd like to find an app that allows you more flexibility to choose your own running plan. Like maybe I want to run 2 1/2 min, walk 1 min and then repeat that sequence for 30 minutes. Maybe I should figure out how to design the app myself but that seems complicated. Until then I'll have to just set my alarm on my apple watch and just keep clicking repeat.

So today I began running. Here's what I did: I walked for 5 min to warm up, followed by a run/walk of 1 minute each for 10 min and then walked 5 min. The total time was about 20 minutes but my running time was only 5 minutes. It's a start. Like I said, I'm starting as a lump on the couch.