I guess I just have to take it easier. I was up to week 8 in C25k when I had to take a month off for injuries. When I came back I couldn't just start up where I left off. Once I got back up to 3 miles at a time I thought I could move on to the next program, but apparently not yet. I have had to take off a week now in then in the last couple of months to avoid injuring myself again. Finally I took off 2 weeks and I was hoping to just get back out there and do 3 mile runs, but I guess not.

glad to see all the progress folks are making. i was thinking of you all this morning since we decided to go and run the 5k distance and not worry about time or intervals or anything (since the 1st race is next sunday, and we hadn't gone a full 3mi yet). more than once i had to think "HTFU" to get over the mental hurdles. it's weird- my body was totally fine with it, conversational pace, even after the 3.1 mi was done i didn't feel burned out but my brain kept yelling at me to quit. we took a few fast walk breaks along the way to catch our breath, but i really think it was more that my mind felt i couldn't do it because i kept checking for pain and there wasn't any. right now, i feel totally exhilarated! i didn't time it on purpose, but i estimate that i took about 39 min, which is not too shabby with walking breaks and comfortably paced. super psyched for next sunday!!

Littlefrog, welcome to the group! It only gets better as you get further into C25K. Erendis, it is a big mental game, isn't it? I've got my next race next weekend too and I'm looking forward to seeing what I can do.

Has anyone dealt with loss of fitness? I stopped running like I did for a week, and I can only top out at 10 minutes now. Also, I can't get used to running with all of these fit people around me. I usually don't care, but I'm so used to running all alone and on top of that, not being the biggest person around. It's weird.