Why am I getting slower?!

[mrqwest]

After I graduated a few months back, I carried on with two or three runs a week and had been doing really well, I even managed to get my 5k time to below 30mins (29:52) which I was pleased with.

August was a bit slack in the amount of km's I ran (69km in July, 38km in Aug) but with my 10k coming up, Septembers been a bit better and have tried to get out every other day although that's been child-permitting.

Anyway, this morning, I was up at 5am, out the door by 20 past with the intention to run 30minutes (as per my bupa 10k plan).

I've felt like my times have been slowing down recently so I put on the C25k+ Speed podcast to do followed by my own music to make it up to 30mins but ironically, todays 30min run was my slowest yet!

30minutes running today, and I only covered 4.6km. My average pace has slowed too and it's frustrating. I've lost over a stone in weight since starting the C25k, I'm lighter and stronger so why am I slowing down?

Any ideas / tips / tricks greatly appreciated.

[Mitts Graduate]

I haven't been running long - I'm at W9 - so I can't really comment on the running bit of your question, but if you've lost a lot of weight recently could you maybe be anaemic and have less energy because of that?

Good luck getting to the bottom of it anyway!

[mrqwest Graduate in reply to Mitts]

Thanks Mitts. I don't think I'm anaemic, I've got plenty of energy and still have a fair amount of weight to lose. Might be worth looking into it though.

[swanscot Graduate]

I don't know the answer, but are you stretching yourself in more ways than just running fast for 5K?

I've just started on a training schedule to go up to 10K now I've completed C25K. I've devised my own plan from others I've read online.

I'm doing 3 runs with different emphasis:

- One run at increasing times from 30 mins onwards, but introducing small hills into my routes. I don't worry what distance I cover, but am trying hard to keep a steady pace. I record my run in Runkeeper and at the moment my pace jumps about like a frantic rabbit!

- The second run is using the B210K intervals podcast and I try to keep a steady pace again, but on a more level course.

- The third run is the LSD (Long Slow Distance) run where I'm running slower than I do for a 5K run, but increasing the distance by about 10% each week.

[mrqwest Graduate in reply to swanscot]

To be fair, not really. I've been off & on with teh running for the last month or so so just putting it down to not enough training but when I was running, it was just 5k and at the weekends, trying a longer run.

I done the C25k+ Speed podcast on Monday + running to make it up to 30mins running so hoping that'll take effect soon.

I ran again this morning and the avg page has gone down from 6.32 to 6.28min/km so I'm ever so slightly quicker but I'm hoping to complete this 10k in 55minutes which means I'll need an avg page of around 5.30.

what's your 10k training schedule, just out of interest? I'm doing the Bupa 10k plan which starts at 5k and ups the time / distance to 10k over an 8 week plan.

[swanscot Graduate in reply to mrqwest]

Mine is just a plan I made up based on the several. It's very like the Bupa plan with three runs a week. The times/distances are just like you Bupa plan, but for one of the days that is "Run 30 minutes continuously" I am trying to do that run on a route that includes hills.

From what I've read, hill workouts will help build strength and speed. Another reason I'm adding running hills, is simply so I can do more running off-road. I wish to protect my knees which have suffered years of use and abuse from climbing hills- and the local forest is hilly. Ideally I'd love to be able to run 10K on the forest tracks.

Looking at my stats so far (and I'm only just finished C25K) my average pace for the flattish (ie easy) 6k run was 6.34 min/km, while the first hill session I did earlier this week - again 6K was only 7.07 min/km.