fallen out with laura!!!!

[Jonnyman]

well I have abandoned c25k now but still running and aiming to improve.

It started in week four after run 1. I decided to do a run just for fun to see how far I could go without stopping. I already had a route mapped out that I used for C25k and knew the distance so off I set following a 2.2 mile loop.

I did the warm up walk for 5 mins and then started running and, to my surprise I made it the rest of the way round and it worked out at about 20 mins for the running part. The next run I went back to week 4 run two and found it quite easy so instead of week 4 run 3 I did the whole loop running again and then again for the next run instead of week 5. Since I had now done 3 20 mins runs I decided to go straight to week 6 but could not get the podcast to download at all.

so now I was stuck so decided to do the loop a few more times but adding a little extra distance each time until I was running 2 miles in total with the warm up beforehand.

having looked at week 7-9 , since these were all about building up time and hopefully distance I continued without Laura (it is a real pain to download to Black Berrys!) however, I then mapped out a 5.3 k distance and set off to see how far I could get with that (including the warm up walk within the route) Again I surprised myself and ran the full distance so I am now concentrating on that distance for a little while.

so technically I am a graduate even though I deviated!! I am only doing 5k in around 40 mins at the moment so I think I will try the steps speed programme and I still use the principles I learnt from Laura around running pace/rest days etc so I do think it is a good programme but a little slow for people who can build up fitness levels fairly quickly. (I was already walking miles and doing zumba but had never run before)

[Mitts Graduate]

Sounds like you're doing really well all by yourself, Jonnyman!

I'm sticking to 5K, working to get faster and arrive at the end a more attractive colour than my current deep purple... On a normal day I go 35-40 mins, once I did just over 30. I alternate the Speed and Stamina podcasts with 'own music' runs, and after S&S I try to continue to the end of the 5K.

You'll know best yourself now how to keep improving. Just keep running and enjoy!