I seem to have a problem doing the shorter runs......

[E27M14]

Does it matter? I’m doing Juju’s magic 10 and yesterday I set out to do 3k as the first run of week 2. So I was playing around with speed, trying to run slowly, then doing 0.5k approx 1 minute per mile faster, then back to slow again...... and then I had run all the way round my usual 5k loop. I’m planning to do 6k on Thursday and Parkrun on Saturday should have been my 5k for the week. How important is it to just do 3k or can I take that as a “minimum”

[roseabi]

The plan is designed to ensure that you are not increasing your weekly kilometerage by too much per week. The plan progresses from Week 1 to 2 by increasing by only 1 km (from 13 km to 14 km), which is 7% (edit: not 0.7% 😄) of the total distance run in Week 1. If you do two 5 km and a 6 km this week you'll be increasing by 3 km, or 23% of the total in Week 1 - which is quite a bit more than planned.

What total weekly distances were you typically running before you started the Magic Plan? If you were already covering a similar distance regularly I don't see a problem with you doing parkrun this weekend!

However, don't forget this IS a plan, so strictly speaking the answer to your question is no, the 3k is not a minimum. If you keep regularly exceeding the stated distances you won't be following the plan 😉😄

[E27M14 Graduate10 in reply to roseabi]

Thanks for the explanation, that makes sense now. I have been running 5k every other day (so normally 3 times, sometimes 4 in a week) since I graduated in February. So looks like I should be Ok to do Parkrun this week and then try harder to stick to the plan next week.

[roseabi in reply to E27M14]

Yep, have a good one! xxx

[roseabi in reply to E27M14]

Btw it makes even more sense now I've corrected my typo - apologies for that!! 😄

[Dowat Graduate10]

Sounds like you’re really enjoying your running. I’m loving the magic10 plan. I overdid it last week so trying to stick to plan this week, wk 5 started today and did the 8k, so two shorter runs to do. Enjoy your park run.

[UpTheStanley Graduate10]

For the short runs at the beginning of the Bridge, I did a couple of sets of 30:20:10 intervals (with the 10 absolutely eyeballs out) which made it entirely possible to stop after 2.5 or 3 k!

[Runningfit Graduate10]

It makes sense to do a short run e.g. 3 km but do fast and slow so try the nhs c25kplus speed podcast ×2 it has one minute fast one slower