What did you find hardest about life after g... - Bridge to 10K
What did you find hardest about life after graduating C25k?
Since graduating I have find it very hard to stay motivated , I enjoyed the structure, I have tried the C25 podcasts just not the same, i have tried repeating week 8-9 but it's not the same. 😥
I know myself, so didn’t let myself get as far as struggling.
Before I graduated, I thought I would struggle without the structure of the program, but KNEW that I needed to move on from doing 5k and go longer (rather than just work on increasing my speed) if I was going to stick with running for myself (rather than for the dogs) afterwards. I’d already joined a social (Canicross) running group, so I had support in place as well as lots of invites to runs throughout last winter that had the promise of cake and hot chocolate at the end 😍 Very important as I graduated on Christmas Day last year!
I also signed up to Parkrun. I’ve now run three of those and volunteered at one as well. And yes, I’ve fallen victim to ‘the need for speed’ and am hoping to do a 30 minute Parkrun before the end of this year.
I spent a lot of time agonising about whether to enter 10k races or not which finally led to me realising that I like running alone, in peace and in beautiful country side and I have no need to run any more than 5k.
However I do need to consistently keep running 5k. Slipped up a bit on this! What's good though is, it is not complete agony picking it up again! I get enough of a good feeling on lovely mornings like today to remain motivated (just 
)!
I do think that running a 10 k may make running a 5 k a little easier! Only a few times a year. I want to be able to run 5 k in 28 minutes on a very different parkrun without breaking out in a sweat. 😂
Currently happy to keep on running 30 mins 3 times a week with a Parkrun on Saturdays. Its strange that we all need to push ourselves further and are never content with with being a C25K graduate. I tried hard last Saturday to run a pw (personal worst) and ended up with a pb. Where does it all end ? - 10k, half-marathon, marathon - a fellow runner. aged 65, is running the Greenland marathon in 2 weeks 
hasnt been too bad for me. ive always kept myself a few ultimate goals and a few short term ones to keep me going. a current goal would be my 5k PB and ultimate goal would be close to 20 minutes.. dare i say lol. and i plan many routes on strava so its like a new adventure every time
I had no issues. Structure is life as well as running is important but I've enjoyed going 5K to 10K 'unsupervised'. I thought of following an app, but then simply went with 10% rule in my own time, and it's been really great. Never had problem with motivation, weather or anything else. Besides, I prefer to go it alone so it's my run, my rules
The hardest thing for me after graduating c25k was that I could only run for 30 mins. I had the c25k+ podcasts as my structure but I found physically running for even a minute longer than the 30 was not possible.
I know now that trying to add on to the end of my run instead of the beginning or in the middle was my problem. I just couldn't run past the place where I usually stopped. With a hill near the start of my course, I was not reaching the 5k mark in the 30 mins, only about 4.3k which made me think I couldn't actually manage that distance.
Discovering the Sammi Murphy method with run/walk intervals gave me the tools to run for longer. I only got up to W3 though as the runs were so hard, then went back to my 30 mins non-stop again.
It was only a couple of months ago that I ran a non-stop 5k outside and since then have been doing it regularly with no problems at all. (I now use a flat course.)
I have always found the help I have needed has been there, either on the forums, or the healthunlocked website and the motivation has come from reading about others acheivements. The advice and inspiration offered by the experienced runners has been invaluable to me. Thanks everyone...😊
I graduated last autumn and after a few runs lost the motivation to carry on. Especially as the nights grew longer and the weather less pleasant. Started again early spring from week 4 and graduated again. Determined this time to keep running at least 1x per week regardless of the weather.
I was so proud of myself for graduating from C25k. I went into the C25k+ program immediately and have been doing those over and over again. If I am short on time or have sore muscles, (which happened this past week, uncannily, for the first time in any of my running,) I do Speed. I am pretty sure I can run faster than after graduating from C25k since I really relish the bursts of effort in Speed now, but I find it difficult to imagine going more than 30 minutes partly because there seems no clear path to doing so for me. My son is bugging me to do two Speeds in a row when I do Speed to get 30 minutes of running in, but that would ruin the feeling I get from running it.
Once you can run 5 km, the next step is to get a measure of fitness. The age grading the parkrun uses is great. I think one needs to be 50 percent fit to be healthy. The next step is either mentain that level of fitness or put another goal into place. I have just realised if I dont put a plan in place to run a 10 k my 5 k time is going to stay around 30 minutes. Pushing new horizons and having realistic goals is important for motivation. In Lala land everyone is stuck on the couch floating around in the valley of indecision. We need to keep on jumping off the couch and face a new challenge. 😁😂 One needs to exercise 4 times a week or for 150 minutes. Running once a week is going to be painful the next day unless one goes for a personal worse every week.
would love to hit that 60% grade one day *adds to my mental list of running goals* XD
also forgot to mention parkrun as one of my motivators. the goals of getting a milestone tshirt
Great Run Local has kept me going. Each time I do it after not running all week I feel terrible, so it motivates me to do the mid week and Saturday runs. Also having a local 10k race as a goal was good. I did it in just over an hour which I was pleased with. Now I am starting to think "half-marathon?" but I would need to put in more time, which is hard when working full time. But other people do it, so maybe I could. Good luck to everyone
You could.... it just takes a bit of creativity to fit it all in... join us at :
healthunlocked.com/marathon...
For some support and race tips 😎
i started c25k to train for a duathalon (run 2.5km, cycle 20km, run 6km) after the duathalon (1hr52min) i kind of stopped running. im now cycling to work 1-2 times a week 35km each way. but dont have the energy or drive to run again. I need to get into park runs again.. but life is busy.. i think i need to do another duathalon in September to keep me focused.
Lack of the C25k programme structure.
I think there is an opportunity for two structured programmes, one to follow a pace improvement and follow it up by a distance option.
4 weeks of each.After the consolidation period .
