Plodding on...

[Joopoo]

Recovered from toe injury enough to start running again. Been out twice since then. STILL on w2 but trying to increase run times slightly whenever I can. Main problem is running out of breath/not getting enough breath, so can't see myself progressing to wk 3 yet without passing out! Will keep going and hopefully one day I'll get there.

Feel great sense of achievement each time have completed a run anyway so thats good ☺

[Ullyrunner Graduate]

Well down - stick at it! Are you maybe trying to run too fast? Really slow and steady is the way to get there. Your breathing will get better.

[Joopoo in reply to Ullyrunner]

Thanks for the encouragement ☺

[Rignold]

Agree with Ullyrunner: if you are running short of breath you are running too fast. Slow down, slow right down, and then slow don some more. It doesn't matter if you are running at walking pace. Its not about pace, it's about building stamina. I could never work out the slow running thing in the first weeks of the programme until I went for a run with my then 3 yr old and discovered trotting along at hs pace enabled me to run without any breathing issue at all. I did go a little bit faster than toddling but itopened my eyes to pace and the programme was plain sailing after that.

[Joopoo in reply to Rignold]

Thanks. Maybe I am running too fast. Will slow down tomorrow

[gary_bart]

As long as you're enjoying the journey, you're on the right track. The more I read the replies here, the more I think that in my own experience of this programme I didn't properly get just how slowly you're meant to go, and just how much benefit you can get from just going slowly like that. (I won't go on about it; I was just uncomfortable going too slow, but maybe that was the better thing to tolerate). One good thing about going as slowly as you can is that your chance of picking up an injury diminishes. You're giving your tendons, ligaments, cartilage, back, etc time to slowly meet the challenge of a more active lifestyle. That takes time. You can't just go and make a bunch of microtears in your cartilage for your body to repair tonight.

So I'm swinging slowly toward the idea that the right way is not just to take one step at a time, but also one Phase at a time. c25k would count as a phase in that model. So you would complete the whole of the "very gentle phase" before you even thought about other things like pushing your distance to 5km, your speed to Xkm/h, and so on.

[Joopoo in reply to gary_bart]

Thank you

[RunningForBroke Graduate]

Way to hang in there!