Hiya!! Im currently into week 3, just completed run 1.
My problem is that i walk faster than when i "jog" and feel absolutely ridiculous!! I am 24!!
I feel that surely if my "running" is so slow, surely i would get more health benefits from walking? Its very disheartening as i do really enjoy this programme. I would NOT be able to complete 3 mins if i upped my pace which just doesn't make sense to me as like i say- i seem to walk faster than i run and obviously can manage to walk 3 minutes? Does anyone else run really slowly?
Kimberley x
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I think a lot of people get the idea that they can walk quicker than they can run... BUT... the running action however slow is so so different from walking... and that really makes a difference. If your heart rate and respiration are raised when you are running then that's doing you good. Personally, I could walk for miles without breaking into a sweat!! However, I could run for 5 mins and get out of breath.
Pace, speed and distance will all come. You just need to follow the plan and trust in Laura.
Don't worry at all about speed. You can always run faster once you graduate, and if even then, only if you want to. Keep at it - you're doing just fine.
Dont worry, just do as Laura says. You will be surprised. The speed increases gradually automatically, while you dont notice it.
When you reach the end of the program you will b able to run continuously for 30 minutes, which is excellent to be able to do. If you then continue to run for 30 minutes 3 times per week you will find that each day you run a bit further because your overall speed will be increasing. It just comes automatically.
Oh I remember that feeling so well! Do not despair! As your strength and stamina improve you will feel the benefits more and more. Trust in Laura and trust in the program. Slow is good to avoid injury too Stick at it and you will be amazed at what you can do by the time you get to week 9 x
If yu read through some posts on here, you will find there is scarcely a page without some variant of this question. And the answer is always the same: there is no too slow, only too fast. The slwoer you go at the beginning, the better.
Just believe in the programme .... It really works ;-).
Andy is dead on there, we all could walk for miles and not think about it , it really is about the running and gradually building week on week and the actual sense of real acheivement at completing each timed run
I've just finished week 3. Week 4 run 1 tomorrow. I am very slow too as often running with my son who's 7 and quite slow on his little legs. I'm trusting all the people on here and know I couldn't even have jogged for 3 minutes slowly 3 weeks ago and now I can! It's not a race, -yet!
Doesn't this just show that the reason people are not active enough is not because they are lazy but because they have perfectionist ideas about what being active has to mean?
There is a strong argument for not using any gadgets on the programme (brilliant though they are afterwards) - you do not need to know how far or how fast you have moved. You just need to do as you are told - which is very, very hard for most of us. We think it is physically (and of course at least for a while it is) but it is also a huge chunk of mental.
I DID use gadgets, I used MapMyRun, and I can say that it was almost impossible to tell where I was running and where I was walking. Surely we all started like that didn't we? You only have to read through the posts here though, to see that it's true, speed will come later.
Hi Kimberley - just read your 'failed run' post and looked back at your other posts now too. Whatever you do, don't give up as you've come so far already (and you've got those new shoes!). You're only 24 (same age as my son) so have a whole life of running and fitness ahead of you. My son hasn't been active for years and partly as a means of getting him off his bottom I started this cto5k plan as knew that he wouldn't want to have me doing some exercise and him not. Anyway, obviously it worked and he has joined in too. However, the big difference is, that he is doing his own thing - not warming up / running too fast / running for long distances / obsessed with his 'stats' etc, etc. Every run for him is a battle and occasionally he has given up on a run with some excuse or other, whereas I, over 30 years older, have always had successful runs (not easy obviously) but he has been amazed at my progress - every stage a success, whereas he has struggled and sometimes failed. What I'm trying to convey in this big ramble is (a) don't give up - you've achieved so much already in only 4 weeks - consider everything you've done so far as a success, with one bad run (b) don't expect it to be easy just because you're young (my son isn't finding it easy) and (c) and most importantly, are you running just a fraction too fast? I am on week 7 and I can honestly say I felt I was going backwards (on a minor, minor incline) as I was going so slowly. BUT THAT ISN'T THE POINT - everybody on here, and Laura on the tapes, says its not the speed, its the endurance. Someone also said on here once that they got overtaken by a gardener with a wheelbarrow. So, you've done amazingly well just to get out there - take each run slower, then slow down again - but keep going. Above all, its a mental thing - tell yourself you are going to complete this and you will. Give in now and you'll go back to how you were and be sorry. Keep posting too - find someone on the same week as you too - that's whats keeping me going - I'm finding wk 7 really tough but I'm determined to try and not give in as I don't want the others to graduate and me not! (but don't injure yourself in the process). Good luck and sorry for the huge monologue but I've found this forum so helpful and inspirational. I probably wouldn't have got so far without it and given up a long time ago. (also remember, you don't have to do it in 9 weeks - many people don't as they have repeated weeks, so you won't be the first to do that by a long way)
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x
Week 9 completed but slow!!!
SLOW AND ERRATIC, NOW HIGH AND ECSTATIC!
slow and steady
Week 2 Run 2 too slow? 
Slow down and breathe
