First week or so post-graduation

[Joanee]

I had a couple of quite difficult first runs post-Laura, but put it down to too many consecutive nights with little sleep working on a contract deadline - I could really feel that I was not quite with it. I cut the runs a bit shorter (27 and 22 minutes). Today, though, report submitted and after a good sleep, I used My Asics for the first time, setting a goal of running 5 km in a month. I have been staying away from measuring pace and distance up to now. Then I set out and ran a couple of minutes over the 30 minutes to reach 4 km. What I really found interesting was that I ran fastest for the first km, which I had no idea I was doing, especially as it is mainly uphill. I find the first 10 minutes of a run really hard - maybe that is why! Do people usually start out more slowly for the first bit, or try to keep steady throughout? My second km was really slow, but that is likely due to detouring around some huge puddles and jumping over roots on a trail (which is fun).

I did not really follow the directions for the plan My Asics generated, and think I might switch to Runkeeper and do my own thing, following the general advice people have given on here of adding up to 10% time (or distance?) each week. The My Asics plan had me running excruciatingly slowly for 3.2 km for several days, then suddenly upping this to 4.8 km, then suddenly upping the pace. I am not particularly interested in speed, more in distance.

[IannodaTruffe Mentor]

So long as you are out there running, it doesn't matter if you do a bit less. The important thing at this stage is to reinforce the habit. The 10% rule/guide states that you should not increase your weekly total distance by more than 10%. This is best applied to one long run per week, keeping your others at the same distance. Although you may be able to exceed this on occasions, it does help keep injury risk minimised.