over 10 years of smoking, I wanted to jog. My sister in law was jogging at the time, so we decided to go together. I found it hard. If i went to hard, I would start to hyperventilate and wouldn't be able to breath. We slowly stopped jogging and even though it didn't last long, it was a start.
Then we started crossfit. I would still hyperventilate when I did any running or just went to hard. I was told it would go away so I just slowed down and paced myself better. Then I started running at the local track with a friend once a week. We tried to aim for 5k every week. We mixed a lap of walking and then running. I had to, mostly with my hyperventilating. Seem to keep coming even though I tried to pace myself. Then once WOD at the gym was a 3x 800m run. It was scary but I did it, without hyperventilating. I didn't get a good time by far but it was a huge defeat.
A little bit later my friend was unable to continue jogging. Then with hunting season here we decided not to renew our gym membership until things have slowed down. So I was getting an itch. Then my friend was posting about starting jogging and using an app. called couch to 5k. So i checked it out and seemed good. I am on my 4th day and without any issues with breathing. It tells you when to run and walk. So you get a good 1 min run then about 1 min of walking. So it works well with me and I am seeing progress everyday. Plus I go running with my dog, which is great. She also gets some exercise with me.
