Week 4 run 2

[Karina1976]

Just managed 3.59k doing run 2 of week four .... is it possible to make 5k In 30 mins by wk 9 .... any success stories ?

[Oldfloss Administrator Graduate]

Some...but not many..check out Irish-John 's survey...many of our seasoned graduates, half marathon and marathon runners have never run 5K in 30 minutes

The idea of the C25K programme is the 30 minute runs after the nine weeks and most folk head for that Getting there injury free

Building up of stamina and core strength and running legs takes time.. C25K is just the start....if you are doing that distance in this week.. I think you may be moving a tad too fast too soon

[Karina1976 in reply to Oldfloss]

Really , that is a mixture of walking and running and I thought that was really slow xx

[Oldfloss Administrator Graduate in reply to Karina1976]

Right.. okay if the walking was in there too.. but keep it slow and steady... a way to go yet... I worry too much... about folk getting injured

[Karina1976 in reply to Oldfloss]

Thanks for the advise

[Bonkersbrit Graduate]

It is very possible, remember you only ran for 11 of the 30 minutes in Week 4, you will be running all 30 in week 9!!

Having said that, is it probable? No.

Cold hard facts, only 10% of graduates recently polled managed 5k by week 9, most are somewhere betrween 4 and 5. They go on to run 5 k and then reduce time to 30 mins after graduation. Two more excuses to party!!!

Just enjoy the journey, stay slow and low (don't waste energy bouncing up and down) and build your running stamina.

I graduated last week with 4.65k and I don't think I was doing 3.59 by wk 4 but I can't be sure as I wasn't recording distance until about week 7.

Hope that helps. Keep running, keep smiling and keep us posted.👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼😀🥇🐢🏃🏼‍♀️

[Karina1976 in reply to Bonkersbrit]

Or thank you for the advice ... I am doing a 10K run for charity in September so want to be fit enough to at least compete that by then

[Bonkersbrit Graduate in reply to Karina1976]

I'm no real expert but I'd say, another five weeks should have you running for 30 minutes comfortably and repeatable. End of July, ish. Then you might try Bridge to 10k ( similar to this program, but guess what? It's goal is 10km). I'd imagine running 10k means you need to be able to run 60 mins comfortably and on the day, it might take you a bit longer, depending on the terrain. Your first priority should be to build stamina and avoid injury. September will come fast and you may end up walking for short periods of it ( I know , that's not what you want!) but the other way is to rush it, tear a muscle and loose 2, 3 or more weeks of training or worst still, miss the race because you are injured. Always take your rest days ( from running) but use them to do other fitness stuff, there's an nhs program called Strenth and Flex that lots of people use( not me I'm afraid, so I can't give feedback), Rignold is a great advocate of squats, everyday, not just rest days, for breakfast, lunch and tea!, others do swimming, cross training, cycling etc Anything that does not involve the running motion as it's those muscles, tendons and bones which need to rest.

I'm sure if you keep asking questions, much more qualified people than me will appear and give you shed loads of advice.

Good luck, keep us posted.👍🏼👍🏼

[IannodaTruffe Mentor]

People come to this programme with a huge range of physical fitness, abilities and in some cases disabilities and with many decades age span. With such a variety of starting points, there is inevitably a great variety of outcomes. I don't recall anybody running 5k in under twenty minutes within the programme, although some get to low twenties. Week 9 saw me, at the age of 57, run 5k twice in under 30 minutes. I lost the time for my first one and the second one had some unlikely looking splits, so I don't trust it, although the route and overall time do confirm a sub 30 run.

My base level of fitness was probably above average, which I find quite shocking, having always been a keen walker and also doing physically active work, but I hadn't run for forty years.

You don't need to run sub 30 minutes 5k to go on to run 10k and in fact if you want to hit your 10k in September you would be better off concentrating on stamina rather than speed after graduation. What you achieve speed wise will depend so much on your physical condition prior to starting C25K, rather than how much effort you can put in during the plan. Running hard and fast will increase injury risk, but if you are relatively fit you will be less prone to injury than someone who has not been active before starting to run.