Week 6, run 3 - new shoes and 25 minutes. Woo hoo!

[NettieNoo]

I hope I'm not boring you lot as much as my family, with my born again runningness, but I've just done my first 25 minute run and I feel fantastic! I took advice from your replies to my previous post and had my gait analysis done and bought new shoes - this was their first time out. I chose a local cycle track/footpath on an old railway track bed, which is very slightly downhill (was that cheating?) and checked my distance after my 5 minute warm up walk and 25 minutes running and I'd done 4.5k. I'm very happy with that! My legs felt like they weren't attached to my body when I stopped - you know how when you get out of the swimming pool you feel heavier? Well it was the opposite of that, I felt incredibly light, like my legs might just float away. I can't believe I'm actually running now. It feels brilliant.

[UnfitNoMore Graduate]

If downhill is cheating I’d best start over 🤣. Can’t beat a nice gentle downhill and as long as you ran it reasonably gently it will do wonders for your joint strength as the impacts are slightly bigger. For that reason I wouldn’t go downhill every run.

Great job on 25 minutes... you’ve got this and some great new kicks to do it in.

[NettieNoo Graduate in reply to UnfitNoMore]

Oh, ok. It's only very slightly downhill. My usual runs are flat / slightly uphill. I do Parkrun somewhere with some hilly bits, and they kill me - so the idea is to build up to being able to run for 30 minutes in a variety of places and gradually start to do a bit more uphill.

[UnfitNoMore Graduate in reply to NettieNoo]

I run a very similar trail... love the downhill ones and sometimes run it the other way... the uphill runs really aren’t too much different, of course a railway only has a slight incline. You have a decent plan there. Depending on how hilly that parkrun is you may be well served extending a run for the extra stamina... one of my local ones is a little hilly, and I figured that to be able to run it all I first needed to be able to do 7k flat.... when I got to 5 miles I tried it and finished with a little left in the tank.

[NettieNoo Graduate in reply to UnfitNoMore]

Thank you - I was wondering how to build up to being able to do Parkrun properly. I can now run 25 minutes quite comfortably on the flat, but put me anywhere near a hill and I have to revert to running a couple of minutes / walking a couple of minutes. As a result, Parkrun is frustrating and disappointing in equal measure. I'll carry on doing what I'm doing, but try (once I'm running for 30 minutes) to run for 7k on the flat. I can't believe I'm even discussing it - I've never run in my life before!

[Tiggysalledgedowner Graduate]

Well done on w6r3, got mine tomorrow. Interesting on the new shoes, I promised myself some at the end of w3, but have decided I don’t want to change anything as it’s all going so well, and I may be tempting fate with new footwear so the old Nike gym shoes will have to do a few more miles, my feet are suffering anyway, but that is too much time in a sea kayak in wetsuit booties.

[NettieNoo Graduate in reply to Tiggysalledgedowner]

Good luck - it's just fine!

[Run46 Graduate]

Brilliant NettieNoo, defo not cheating choosing an easy route, why not when you know it's going to be challenging...when I did my 1st 5K I chose the coolest day and did my flatest route for the same reason! Congrats, you runner you 😁🏃‍♀️🎉