Couch to 5K on a treadmill - what running speeds would you recommend?????

[MattyK]

I have just finished W3R2 but am still unsure about how fast or slow I should be walking/running. I am running indoors on a treadmill (well, in my garage to be exact)! Was just wondering if anyone had any recommendations as to how many miles per hour a brisk walk and a steady jogging pace would be? Thank

[Bridger Graduate]

I think it depends on your natural speed, I am on week 7 on a treadmill - I just set the walk to a certain speed and on the runs I do it 1.5x faster. So if I walk on 3, I run on 4.5 whatever feels best, Laura will give you advice on how you should be feeling on the walk, so just do what feels natural on the run as well.

[sfb350 Graduate]

Don't worry about the speed others are doing - I just use the treadmill speeds to monitor how I'm doing compared with my last run and to try and up the speeds for sections of each run (doesn't always happen - sometimes I find I'm too tired !). For what it's worth I find that if I try to walk at 7kph, I'm on the verge of having to break into a run so I usually set my brisk walk at between 6.5 and 6.9kph. At week three, I think I probably wouldn't have managed to take a drink at that speed - I would have had to slow down to do that. Now I can just about manage to take a drink at my steady running speed.

I worked on doing most of my walks/runs at a comfortable, sustainable pace but aiming to increase the speed for a part of each run, usually the last bit, which I think helped me build up my speed over the weeks.

[Gazter Graduate]

I just finished week 7 day 1, i walk at 5kph and run at 7kph. But i am carrying substantial weight.

I think you should aim for a speed that you can maintain for the entire run. I started at 4kph walking and 5.5kph running (yes, it is possible to jog at 5.5kph!).

Today i ran straight for twenty five minutes. At the beginning i upped my speed to 7.5KPH, i managed it for about ten minutes but had to drop back down to 7kph.

I really felt the impact of the extra speed towards the end of the run, it had knocked a lot more out of me than i expected, by 20 minutes i could barely move my legs in front of each other, despite lowering down to the 7kph and my levels of perspiration and fatigue were much worse than a few days ago when i first completed 25 minutes at the end of week 6.

Moral of the story is find a speed that you are comfortable at and dont go too fast because you will be more disappointed by failing to complete the run rather than doing it a bit slower.

The experts on here all seem to say the same thing, go for endurance, the speed will come later.

[mair99 Graduate in reply to Gazter]

Very inspiring... Great work. I bet you are so proud of your achievements so far!

[MattyK]

Thanks for all those comments. I have been walking at about 6kph and running at about 8.8kph so I think if anything I may need to slow down if I am going to sustain this over a longer time. It feels fine at the moment but as I am only on week 3, I guess it will get more difficult as the weeks go by

[sfb350 Graduate in reply to MattyK]

I think you will naturally adapt your speed as the weeks go by, you learn to judge what speed you can maintain for the duration of the run. I think I had to slow down a bit when the runs first started getting longer, then try and pick up speed again. I do recommend you try and get some outdoor running in as well though.

[maddykins Graduate]

when i use the treadmill i usually walk at 5.4 kph and then run at 8.5 but i was running a bit slower than that but have slowly upped it as the weeks gone by. Dont burn yourself out too quickly, keep a bit at the end of the run where you can go faster to push yourself. i usually up it to 9/ 9.2 the last few minutes on the run.

depends if you are also using an incline they say a 1% incline is good but my treadmill doesnt have any incline. walk and run to whatever feels comfortable for you but you need to be sweating and pushing yourself a little.to benefit.

Have fun and good luck and i do agree try and get outdoors for some runs its so different to treadmill running and not so boring ( although noel edmonds and no deal is quite exciting to watch and run to lol)

[Hidden]

I must be crazy. I walk at 4.0 mph and jog at 6.0 with a 1.5% grade throughout. Granted I've had to do each week 2-3 times before moving on.

[running_ind]

I am 5'8" with 68kg and I walk at 6.7 kph for 3 minutes and then run at 10kph for next 22 minutes. Even after that I don't feel tired. I stop because I feel my body temperature is too much and once I measured it too and found that it was 103°C.