Seem to be going backwards ....

[cm1987]

Completed couch to 5k on treadmill and have been on road since end of April. Have managed two 10k’s after building up and have knocked my 5k time down from 35 to just under 31 minutes. However …. This last week has been awful! Having to stop on all of my runs (I’m getting a bit of a cold so that might be it) and have knocked out 27k in the last 7 days … just finding on my runs that I am getting exhausted and my legs are killing me. Any ideas?

[51mc Graduate10]

Impressive progress, well done. Maybe you need to give yourself a slightly easier target for the next week or so, give your body a chance to recuperate . Good luck with the running!

[Jogunlikely]

I've been reading recently that runners should take a week off every now and then. I can't remember exactly which article it was as I followed a link from the forum. This is an excerpt from an article I've just googled...

"If you feel fatigued a lot of the time, if you're experiencing a sustained decrease in running performance or if you feel you're always on the verge of injury, then it's very likely that you're overtraining, and it's probably a good idea to take a week or two off from running"

If you think you are coming down with something I can't see a downside from doing this.

[Couchpotato2]

Sounds like you need a rest. I find also that with longer distances I need two days to recover as I’m still a novice runner

[Irishprincess Graduate10]

Your body is talking to you and telling you to ease up a bit. It takes about a year to build a runner's legs 🙂

Also, if you're coming down with a cold then no wonder you're starting to feel tired. Give yourself a week off and try to get plenty of sleep, eat well, drink lots of water and generally give yourself lots of TLC then ease back into a routine again. I bet you'll notice a big difference.

[JonathanP Graduate10]

Agree it's worth taking it easy for a bit and see if that works.