As if to emphasise the point in my last post... (here: healthunlocked.com/couchto5... ) this shows how the TOTAL weekly running time varies during the programme. You can see very clearly how the increase from Week 3 to Week 4 is by far the largest, while Week 4 to Week 5 is very modest.
What are/were you worried about? 
Cheers
John
Great graph! I love it, thank you 👍🏻😁
Great you've took the time to post this John_W. It's let's people actually see the levels of running . 😊👍
Brilliant I love graphs and stats, must draw one up for the 10k plan
And another one, excellent 👍😁
I loved week 4 because i got settled into the running part before having to walk again, that 20 minute run was fantastic we took it so slow and had a bit at the end for a sprint
It’s such a good programme
I hope you haven't just spooked all those about to do Week 4, John.
What does your gut instinct say? 😎
Personally, I appreciate all the information and analysis, but as we know, there are a lot of people with fragile confidence, who worry about any step up.
For those who panic at W5R3 we can always point out that they have already done a much bigger step up to W4.
In the end we do as we always do and tell people to trust the plan and believe in themselves, because we know the plan works.
I must admit that having just completed w4 I wonder how I will manage a 20 minute run in a few days time. But each week so far I have looked at the following weeks plan with a similar feeling. Each week I have thought about repeating that week but decided to go forward and give the next week a try (there are no rules to say you cant still go back a week if you fail a run, but who wants to fail!). Once I started I have been amazed that I could do it. For that reason although I find it hard to believe I will be able to do it, I have confidence in the plan and so am going for it.
Great attitude Chris, good for you! A lot of people following the plan forget that each week, each run, is preparation for the next one. It's simple but oh so important from a mental point of view. There could be no Week 5 without the preceding 4 weeks of prep. Any training plan (for anything!) that gets you from A to B has to involve incremental steps in progress. In our case, there is a transition to be made from 'walk/run' to simply 'run', otherwise, Weeks 7-9 wouldn't exist and neither would C25K. You have to get to continuous running somehow and W5R3 is your first, but eminently achievable step to getting there.
I have *no* doubt at all that you'll complete it just fine. Just take it nice and easy - slow down if you have to and you'll probably really enjoy it.
Good luck!
John
This post may help re Week 5 healthunlocked.com/couchto5...
Thanks, sounds easy now, . . . on paper! I am sure it will be fine as I have managed the other weeks where I didnt think I would.
I think my biggest challenge is that i have very little flat ground where i live ( not that i realised that until i started running) and it will be where on the run i get the up hill bits. On the second 5 min run of wk 4 the 1/2 way point was just at a peak and i didnt think i would get there, but once over it and on my way down it was relatively easy.
I chose my route for safety ( least roads to cross) so i go around a block twice, each loop has a rise/ fall of about 100 feet which probably is not that much bit I definitely notice it. Thanks again for the link.
And I adore this one, too. 😊
Thank you for the graph - doing W4R3 in about an hour and couldn’t stop thinking about next week! Doesn’t seem so bad now!
Good to hear!
and this one too Alast
Hope they make sense!
Again John, thank you for taking the time and now giving me the links to these earlier posts. This is all very interesting (I'm an engineer, so I love looking at graphs & data!) and I must say that this one is very reassuring to me. I originally started C25K last September, had a bit of difficulty getting into it (probably hence my obsession with single run times) and a couple of times tried the transition from W3 to W4 and couldn't understand why I found it so difficult (because in my way of thinking, I was only running for an extra couple of minutes). Now I can see that the overall step change is much bigger so hopefully I will be better prepared for that when I get there in a few weeks time (I re-completed W1 this morning).
You're welcome and glad you found the graph interesting. I'm a research scientist so of course, I've become a complete running nerd, obsessed with my numbers! As an engineer and with the maths in mind, I'm sure you'll now appreciate that it's the 'area under the curve' (the overall time on your feet) that's the critical factor that helps you progress from week to week. The length of any single running effort, certainly in Weeks 1 to 6, is only a single data point on a graph and I assume we both know about relying on just a single data point to draw any conclusions ...
If you're using the app or podcast files, then the way that C25K is presented to a typical user, in my opinion, isn't necessarily helpful . Frustratingly, it *does* encourage beginners to focus, as you've done, on the length of just the a single run effort and not the overall time on your feet.
When I was doing it 5 years ago, I put all the timings into a spreadsheet and used that to help me while on a treadmill - but it helped me see beyond the individual 'efforts.
Anyway, think I've said enough now!
That’s really good to see. Interesting 🙂
Chattycatt and this one!
Like this a lot...thanks
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