And I'm finished - week 9 run 3 - what next?

[rosiemw]

Graduated four days ago in a not very spectacular fashion - still, 30 minutes is 30 minutes, right? Now what - ran for thirty three minutes yesterday - but there must be a more structured way to go on? What do people recommend

[Run_Rabbit Graduate]

Well done on graduating! - As to what next, depends why you're running I suppose. I wondered the same when I graduated and started to increase my distance and ended up doing 10-15k runs a couple of times a week. At first it was enjoyable because of the sense of achievement, but I also started to get little niggles that I'd never had with the shorter distances and it became quite time consuming with having to fit in 60/90 mins runs ... I then thought about what I really wanted from running - and it all came back to to the health benefits (I'm not competitive), so I did lots of research and it seems the optimum distance, from a health point of view, is between 3-4 miles, 3 or 4 times a week, at a variable pace that is not too stressful. So, now that's what I do, and I've never felt better! I've just come back from a 6k @ an average of 5.30 min per Km and loved every step! - and on my non-running days I do about 20 mins of push-ups / sit-ups / planks ...

[davelinks Graduate]

Consolidate 30 min runs,  heading toward 5km distance and consolidate, build it, then there's c25k+ stepping, speed & stamina podcasts...