First outdoors run...

[John_2510]

Hi all - I mentioned on here a while back that I realised I was going to be in Amsterdam during my week 8 on C25K. Now, I've also said that I've pretty much been exclusively a treadmill runner, but was keen to get outside, so my bright idea was to do week 8 run 2 in the Vondelpark as my hotel was round the corner. Bear in mind, I've been absolutely fine with all the runs so far, and did W8R1 last Monday and didn't struggle at all with it.

So, off I go to the Vondelpark last Thursday. I did my 5 minute warm-up walk to the Park, and then when I walked into the park, the lovely Laura told me to start running now.

Oh dear. I lasted for about 4 minutes before I had to slow down to a near walking pace, and then after 10 minutes I had to stop to get my breath. I tried running back but it was very slowly and again I had to stop a couple of times for a couple of minutes. I just found it so much harder, and I was really really disappointed in myself. I'm even wondering whether i should complete the programme in the gym, and then redo it from the start running outside, as it just seems so different. I'm going to redo W8R2 tonight as I feel I didn't really complete it last week due to the walking and stopping.

Anyone else struggled with running outside after being on a treadmill? To brighten up this probably quite miserable sounding post, here's a nice picture of the Vondelpark I took while I was 'recovering'.

[Irishprincess Graduate]

You were probably running too fast. It's very easy to do that when you've come from the treadmill because the pace is set there and you don't think about it.

Next time outside, think about slowing right down and you should be fine. You could also try alternating between treadmill and outside just to get yourself used to the different terrain.

Well done btw and lovely photo 🙂

[Cherylcw Graduate]

I got a treadmill at week 3 (due to young kids and my other half working regular nights) and did pretty much all of my runs on there after that. Week 6r3 I ran outside and found it so hard, had to slow down almost to a walk a few times, but the main reason was because of not being used to hills on the treadmill and I was on a very hilly route. After that I went back to the treadmill til w9r1, again I ran another hilly route, but slowed down a lot when needed... Turned out that even my slow was faster than I thought as s faster than my treadmill pace. I then did w9r2 back on the treadmill which I found really really hard.

So for my graduation run last week I decided to run outside again, chose my route more wisely and did 5km in 31m 32s which I was so pleased with.

Yesterday I took my dog with me for the first time and did 4.8km in 28 minutes which was a lovely run once he realised what was happening and I got used to the lead around my waist.

I prefer the outdoor runs as they seem to go faster and there's a breeze so not melting like I do on the treadmill