How far too push myself?

[Jonjo12354]

Ive been running around for 2 months now. As stated in my previous post i was well overweight and have lost around 43lbs and still have a long way to go to get to my goal weight - 14lbs left to lose. My first 5k about 7 weeks ago was 35:21. I ran a 5k early last week in the time of 30:30 and set out the door today in the aim of doing a sub 30min 5k. I completed it in the time of 29:17 nearly knocking 6mins off my time in 7 weeks! I felt today that i still had more energy to push further, soon as i hit 2.6miles on my watch i tried to up the pace to have a strong finish and completed the last mile 25 seconds faster than my second mile. I am running 3 times a week a 10k, intervals run and a 5k. I want to get faster an faster at these 5ks an i hopefully will while still losing weight. Should i continue to push on my 5ks to see how fast i can go or try to run at this speed for a few weeks before pushing any more. Any help will be great thanks.

[IannodaTruffe Mentor]

If you read the guide to post C25k running healthunlocked.com/couchto5... you will find links to articles about running further and faster and the common thread is that most of your running (70-80%) should be at an easy conversational pace to continue to build stamina, as elite athletes do. This leaves the remainder of your time to push hard on pace, either with intervals, fartlek or just shorter runs.

Apparently, the majority of recreational runners spend far too much time at a middling pace and not nearly enough at the slow pace, then not pushing hard enough when trying to up the pace.