Whoops.....

[Lippie]

I did w3r1 with a friend round a country park on Saturday, then did r2 this morning..on pavements like normal. But I got a bit carried away and when she said cool down at the end of the second 3 mins I thought I would "just see" if I could carry on....I did the whole 3 min cool down at a slow run too! Yay me! BUT now I am to sure what to do for the best...do I stick on w3 and wok through the programme properly, or do I just skip up a week or so? Advice?

[Hennith Graduate]

Wow! Well done! If I was lucky enough to be able to do that (!), I think I'd still stick with the programme though. It must be designed that way for a reason and it obviously works from all the stories we read on here. Sounds as if week 4 won't be causing you any worries then!

[Narmour Graduate]

I quite often ran through walking intervals as I felt the early weeks were too easy. In fact, from week 4 until the end of the interval runs, I skipped the warm up walk and ran straight from the house through the 5 minutes on the podcast (I was already warm from walking home from work; I wouldn't endorse skipping a warm up!) and all of the first run as well.

I did stick to the programme, but tweaked it slightly to challenge myself a bit more. it meant that if I had a really tiring day and wasn't feeling too energetic I could just do the podcast as it was and not feel like I had failed. but I never did, I always ended up getting through the amended version!!

[IannodaTruffe Mentor]

Well done, that's a great attitude and will serve you well, however if you stray from the schedule you are on your own and may risk doing yourself an injury. I soon found out where the five minute brisk walk home after a run should start , so frequently ran a bit extra up to that point. I was tempted to skip some of the plan but in the end suppressed my arrogance and accepted that the people who put it all together actually knew more about running than I did. The carefully structured progress that you will make will give you the satisfaction of achievement, but at a gentle rate that will keep the risk of injury to a minimum.

Adding a bit onto a run will do no harm but skipping parts of the course could be demotivating if you hurt yourself as a consequence. It has worked for thousands of couch potatoes who now proudly call themselves runners...trust Laura. Kerb your impatience and enjoy the process. Good luck and keep us posted.

[Lippie]

Thanks heaps for your responses...will sit steady on the programme then,....I did suspect this would be best but I wasn't sure if I was woosing out and not trying hard enough! Run3 tomorrow!