First post, graduated so what is next?

[Tom-k]

Hi everyone!

I am a long time lurker and this is my first post.

I graduated a couple 3 weeks ago and have a love for running that I didn't ever expect when I started.

Since then I have been trying to build up my time running by 5 minutes each couple of days and working up to 10k.

10k to me seems like almost an impossibility, I ran 7k last week in 40 minutes but since then i have struggled to get that far. Today I tried to slow my pace by a minute and I found that even more challenging and was much more tired at the end 6.5km

Does my plan to run 5 minutes extra each time seem like a good one? I tried to follow a walk/ run plan to 10k but i didn;t enjoy it half as much as the couch to 5k app.

Why would running slower make me more tired? I thought it would do the opposite.

This is really a great forum and I hope someone has time to answer my babble.

[Hidden]

I don't know WHY running slower makes you tired but when I had to run slower as tail runner at park run I was REALLY stiff the next day. I put it down to muscles being used in a different way to what they were used to. Not much help to you probably, but well done on your graduating anyway.

To get to 10k I found that running 1x5k (park run) 1x 30 min interval run and 1 longer run (5k increasing by 0.5k per week) worked well. I'm sure you'll get there. Good luck.

[Tom-k in reply to Hidden]

Thank you! that does seem like a good program to follow and I will try it out!

[mfamilias Graduate]

Welcome, lurker Tom Wow, 7 k in 40 minutes is really good! I've tried slowing down, and speeding up, and both hurt I suppose we must have an optimum speed where our breathing and energy requirements work the best. Run/walk doesn't suit me either. 5 minutes for you must be close to one k, which is a pretty big increase every other day. I'm no specialist though, I'm sure there are others on the forum who can impart wisdom on the matter. I'm trying to run two 5Ks, with a little further on a third run ( 500m increases) every two weeks, but for the moment the weather is too hot to start my master plan.

[Sharonb9999 Graduate]

I got to being able to do 10k by doing 2 runs in the week of about 5km each time then on a Saturday I did a longer run - increasing by 0.5km a week. It worked well for me and I've managed to keep that up for the last month. Sometimes for the mid-week runs I do a speed/interval session because now that I can do 10km I want to do it quicker!!

[Tom-k]

Thank you for your great tips!