Others' goals

So how do you give advice about something when you yourself feeling like a complete novice? Or how do you do it without seeming like you're taking over or putting down their goal? Gets you walking a fine line.

One of my cousins, who I don't think has ever been involved in sports of any type, has decided to make running a 10k one of her goals. I think that's great. However, after she told me a bit about how she's going about it, I was concerned.

She has never been a runner. The race is in 2 weeks. She has decided to only run 3 days a week. She is training not by mileage, but by total amount of time that she can run. She's pretty sure that she is running about an 11-minute mile so she should be able to run the 10k in about 1:15. On each of the days that she's running, she is adding 5 minutes to the amount of time she's running. She was also complaining about pain on the back side of her lower legs.

For somone one who's never run, I think her goal is admirable. Running 3 days a week is a little low to get mileage up to complete the race, especially if she wants to run the whole thing. Training by time is fine, if she didn't want to run in a race and complete in a certain time. She has no idea how far she is actually able to run in each of her runs of alotted time. Her finishing time goal is also admirable, however she doesn't know if she is able to maintain an 11-minute/mile pace for 6.2 miles. And adding 5 minutes each of the three days a week you run is alot. Especially for having such little milage under your belt. And its probably causing the pain in her lower legs. And if not careful, she could really end up hurting herself.

Lord knows that I'm not Lance Armstrong. And I'm never (more than likely) going to win any races. But I work hard, I research, I read tons, and put those things into practice. Not to mention I have a little bit of background in being able to rehab oneself and how to prevent. And not to blow my own horn, but I've been running a long time, and have gone serious-injury free.

My cousin states that this is just something that she wants to do and afterwards will probably never do it again. I would never want to discourage anyone from running. (That's just cause I'm one of those weird people that actually enjoy it). But I hate to see her working so hard, in the wrong way, possibly to the point of minor injury just to say she did something that she doesn't even really like.

Maybe when she crosses the finish line she'll come to love it too. Or maybe even get to a love/hate or tolerate kind of relationship with it.

I would rather come in last and have a great time doing it and be proud of myself.