Welcome to September’s Graduates’ Club chat thread, and an extra special welcome to all the new graduates and re-graduates since the last thread : Jammas64 stewieUK Mojo3067 Hobbitfan JK54321 Runningdear PurplePlanter
Massive congratulations to you all!
This is a place for anyone who has graduated to share how their runs are going and to get inspiration and encouragement from others. We’d love to hear how your runs are going, what you’ve got planned and maybe challenge you with a run that will take you out if your comfort zone…
⭐️First and foremost: How’s it going?⭐️
How has your running been this week? What sorts of runs have you been doing? Have you had any triumphs or challenges? What are your plans for next week?
I can’t wait to hear what you’ve been all up to so far and what sort of runs you have on the cards this week.
⭐️ This week’s challenge: run wearing your favourite piece of kit!⭐️
You’ve been running for long enough now. You know you’ve got one. That t shirt that you’re sad is in the wash when you look for it. The leggings that have the perfect pockets. Socks that make you smile. This week’s challenge is to run wearing your favourite piece of kit. That can be clothing, footwear or maybe even tech. Your run can be whatever you want it to be. The only “rule” is that we want to see pictures!!! Maybe even some explanation about what makes your item so brilliant. That could be it’s technical performance or the memories that come with it.
I’m going to open up this run challenge to everyone with a separate thread linked below but you can post your photos wherever you think they’ll get the appreciation they deserve!
healthunlocked.com/couchto5...
So have a fantastic week everyone! Come and say hi!
MissU and the Couch team xxx
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A bit about consolidation and running as a new Graduate…
As we’re still new, I’ll post this again and at some point it’ll migrate into a pinned post and a summary! You’ll almost certainly have heard people talking about taking some time to “consolidate” after graduation. This isn’t compulsory but it’s a really good idea. When you have increased your running distance or duration over a few weeks, it is good to pause and consolidate for a short period, bedding in all that effort and getting ready for whatever comes next. That just means not continuing to build the distance or setting out to get faster for a little while.
It’s a brilliant time to just enjoy your running. Without having to increase duration week on week, you can take the pressure off and have some fun! You can run somewhere beautiful and new. Forget about pace! Mix up your run times. Go up a hill! While you are consolidating you are also helping to establish the habit of running in your life. It is said to take twelve weeks of changed behaviour to create a new habit, so a three-week consolidation will get you there!
Running as a graduate will look different for everyone which is why we really hope people will share what they’ve been doing. We can pinch ideas and take inspiration from each other. The key thing is to keep it steady and remember you’ve got a whole lifetime of running ahead of you. Keeping to 30 minutes max as a rough rule of thumb is a generally good idea and we’d encourage you to be really sensible about running for longer. It’s widely recommended not to increase the length of any of your runs by more than 10% each week because of the risk of injury. Think about how Couch to 5k gradually builds up. The last thing anyone wants is to spend time on the injury couch just after finishing!
