Read the forum again. Every single time anyone asks this question the reply is to slow down and not even think about speed or distance until the programme is complete and you have a good number of miles undeer your belt.
My warm up and down are included in my 'numbers' and distance is 4.3k but i know i've run for 30 mins and worked hard.. thats all that matters. Not speed.
p.s came across the term recreational runner the other day.... : the others are called elite by the way..
If it helps, I've been happily running for 4 years now, lost weight, can do 12k.... this morning's run was 5k in 50:46. Thursday's run was 30 minutes on less challenging terrain and I was moved to do a bit of a sprint down the trail near the end and I covered 3.12k
I thought it would be a good thing to record my early runs as a point of reference to show how far I've come but I'm finding that I'm comparing myself run to run and it's doing weird things to my brain. Endomondo off now!
Oh yeah, slow is fabulous. Slow gets you places. Slow will keep you free from injury while you build up your running legs. Slow running builds running legs (let that be your mantra)
I'm on week 8, including warm-ups I cover a distance of about 4.1k. Yes I'm slow. No, I don't care (although the competitive side of me gets a bit cross about that occasionally and needs to be told to shut up and calm down!) 9 weeks ago I struggled to run for 60 seconds. Now I can run for 28 minutes non-stop. Hurray!! Like other posters have said, doing it slowly and not pushing yourself too hard strengthens your body. I've got this far in 8 weeks, I can wait a bit longer to break that world record!!
I will post the sort of thing I usually post on this kind of query. First of all, ignore the programme name, it's really couch to 30 minutes.
Most C25k graduates are not doing 5k in 30 minutes at graduation, although many build up to that point. Your maximum potential distance over 30 minutes in general terms is dependent on your gender, height, weight, age, underlying health etc. Your maximum on any given day will depend on terrain, weather, your conditioning, mood etc. Over time, you will gradually improve, so long as you keep on running, but don't get injured, don't overtrain.
So recording your pace / distance / time will allow you to track that journey, if you wish. But for now, don't try to force it. Just focus on achieving the elapsed times in the programme. Once you have graduated you can build distance and time or work on your speed.
Ahh, thank you....I thought Cto5K meant that by week 9 I should be able to run 5k. Thanks for clearing that up! Is C25 a different podcast started after graduating from C5? Thank you
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