C25K completed a week ago now.

[SteHarr65]

A friend of mine started this and he was my inspiration to do it myself. I started back in the summer when it was hot hot hot, age 52 at the time now 53 7th Sept and hadn't run since leaving school, I cycle to work 1.6 miles away each day but did consider myself on the unfit side of healthy. But now having completed the C25K program I feel great and continuing to run every other day. Try to bring my pace down so I can run 5K within 30 minutes, it's taking me 40 minute at the moment. The change from the start of the program as been incredible, stamina, recovery it's going great. I can't recommend the C25K enough to anyone, it's hard at times and that 20 minute run week 5 run 3 is a bit of a shocker. But it was amazing that it felt easy, just a nice easy jog and if it felt good go a bit quicker, that's how I treated most of my runs after that. Well that's my story of the C25K journey. Just keep going and you will be a runner for a long time to come. Photo of my last run stats.

[Dexy5 Graduate]

Congratulations SteHarr65. It certainly is a life changer and definitely worth the effort. It must have been difficult during those hot summer days. I started doing parkrun post graduation and slowly but surely my time is getting lower. Sub 34 minutes last week.

Enjoy the rest of your running journey

[IannodaTruffe Mentor]

Many congratulations on your graduation fellow runner.

This guide to post C25K running may be helpful healthunlocked.com/couchto5...

Keep running, keep smiling.

[UnfitNoMore Graduate]

Congratulations and that’s not a bad time at all considering you’ve been running what, 3 months? The time will fall with practice and there’s other ways of bringing it down when you’re ready too.

[SteHarr65]

Thank you for all your replies and a couple of things I forgot to mention were that I am a diabetic and registered blind with 80% vision in right eye totally blind in left. So the running is helping me with more than just getting fitter. Cheers

[Nickimerritt]

Love your post! I have just done the dreaded wk5 r3 and it felt better than expected although my lead jelly legs after were a bit of a shock! I took it cautiously but I felt like id covered a lot of ground so was a tad disappointed to see that id only done 2.79k in 20 mins, from the perspective that i need to add 2.2k in 10 mins as the prospect of running for 40mins seems dreadful at the mo!! Im a get out and get it done kind of person and although 5k in 30 mins is what im aiming for you have given me the reassurance that my pace is ok for now! Thank you

Please everybody dont shout at me for being statistic lead its just the way i am and i do take it slow and steady!!!

[SteHarr65 in reply to Nickimerritt]

Hi and thanks for reading, am glad it's helped you put things in perspective. My aim on my last couple of runs was to lower the pace from 13+mins and as you saw I did that, the run after the one I included here I did 12:27. Not sure if experienced runners would agree but I have "RunKeeper"app and it tells me every 5 minutes what my pace is, how far you've run. So I keep my ears on the pace and if I feel I can run a bit faster I do, it doesn't take much increase to really lower the pace. All I concentrate on is smooth and a little extra length on my strides, I can feel the difference when I've got it right but it sometimes doesn't last.