I am over 50, over-weight and under-tall! I have never been a runner, in fact I have never been fit.
I suspect that my three sons have secretly taken out a life-insurance policy on me. Last Christmas they got me back onto a bicycle and entered me in a 88 mile Sportive in August past. Having survived they have now suggested running. Being game for the challenge I went online for some help.
NHS C25K and this community have been a godsend. I have also discover our local Parkrun. I have walked the course for the last four weeks with an average time of 50.49. This coming Saturday I will incorporate Wk1,R1.
Our local Parkrun is a figure-of-eight course, which means I am passing the finish-line when many of the seasoned runners have completed their run. On a cuple of occasions I have been joined by someone who has finished for my second half of the course. The encouragement is immense and makes me determined to be there every Saturday. I will keep you informed of my progress.
I would recommend Parkrun to anyone hoping to start the C25K programme as a source of challenge and encouragement. We may start walking, but we willend up running the whole 5km
Written by
Troggie_One
Graduate
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Oh, well done! I'm 55 and not at all sporty (hated all that stuff at school - was the second slowest runner in my class). I'm now on week 5. The first week was tough, but I noticed a difference by the second week, so stick it out!
Wow what an encouragement. I was going to wait until finishing c25k before trying our local park run but having read your post I may try it this weekend.
I hope this programme goes really well for you, let us know how it goes.
Troggie has the right idea: go for it! For various reasons I didn't do Parkrun until week 2 end. With my hubby's encouragement I did the whole 5k alternating walking and running and it really encouraged me ready for week 3 as he made sure I managed a few 3 minute runs in there (in fact he dragged me through a five at the start!) The great thing is you set a bench mark and each time you do it you can see the programme working. It's not very close to us so I can't manage every week. I did it again at week 7 starting it with my warm up 5 minutes and then running the 25 minutes: instead of walking the whole 5 cool down I walked for 2.5 minutes to recover a bit then ran to the end (again setting me up psychologically for the longer week 8 runs to come) knocking 2 mins 50s off my W2 time. I recently graduated and am looking forward to running the whole thing next time aiming for another 2.5 mins off my time. I did my graduation run as the full 5 k to make sure I was ready.
Sorry about the delay in posting the promised updates!
Results for the me at Parkrun for the last six weeks are as follows
Date Time
26/10/201344:12:00
19/10/201347:14:00
12/10/201350:55:00
05/10/201350:20:00
28/09/201349:17:00
21/09/201352:04:00
The first four weeks I just walked it as fast as I could to set a baseline. It also helped me get my wee legs used to the pounding on the paths. I am now at the walk-run-walk stage of week one. I am doing Wk1 twice as I am finding it really tough to recover in the 90 seconds despite Laura's best efforts to encourage me. Will let you know how I get on.
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Parkrun Milestone
Parkrun success
New Parkrun PB
First Parkrun 
Week 8 & parkrun
