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Sunday, October 24, 2010

How About Some Information Please?

For the past 8 weeks, I have been working the program. The Couch to 5K program, that is. I have sweated my way through runs from 90 seconds to 28 minutes. Now, as I face my final week, wherein I will run 30 minutes without stopping, I have a question that I am hoping one of you out there can answer for me. What happens when you reach the end of the program, which you have been running according to the times and not the distances (since you are given the option) and you are not running a 5k??? 

My last run, which was 28 minutes, only ended up being a distance of 2.2 miles. According to the program, the appropriate distance would have been 2.75 miles. And by this week, I should be doing 3 miles. Now, a 5k is actually 3.2. I am a whole mile short, and I am fairly certain that an extra two minutes of running this week are not going to equal another mile. So what am I supposed to do? I realize that the logical answer would be to run faster, but I feel lucky every time I make it through my whole run as it is.
So I am putting it out there for those of you who have followed this crazy program - were you successful? At the end, were you running as far as it said you were supposed to? If not, what did you do? I still have about 4 1/2 weeks until my 5k, during which I will just keep running and trying to get my distance up, but does anyone have any good advice?

5 comments:

  1. I didn't use the C25K plan for my 5k, but probably should have. I was NOT as prepared as I had hoped for. Perhaps you can run a 5k distance just for yourself? That could be fun. Or keep building on the plan and stretch it out. Let us know what you decide!

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  2. Just keep running - you've got the endurance to run 3.1 miles - now just do it. Keep track of your times, work on speeding up just a little each time. Just set it up so that mentally you KNOW you can do the 3.1 miles. The time you set will only be the time you have to beat for your next 5k! And good luck - you're doing awesome!

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  3. Ive not done c25K myself but have so many friends who have and theyve all had differing experiences.
    some restarted at the end
    some were running 5ks before the end (!)
    I hate to say this as i know it sounds "pat" and I dont mean it to---but just runrunkeeponrunning!!


    MizFit

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  4. After I got to 30 minutes, I went for distance. I don't know what your speed is, but I was doing about 2.4-2.6 miles in 30 minutes, so I wasn't too far off the 5k. It took me about another two weeks to get to the full 5k. For what it's worth, I'm running a 10k this weekend, and I still can't do a 5k in under 30 minutes (or anywhere near for that matter) :-) Slow and steady wins the race!

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  5. I worry about this. I'm only on week 4 but my mile time seems so slow - considering I know that I was walking the same distance in just a couple minutes more. I hope that I'll just keep going, but for distance instead of time and eventually shave time off my mile. Good luck! I'm doing day 2 of week 4 today and good grief I'm SCARED!

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