We finished up W6 of OHR with the 41 minute long run today. We ended up just a few steps shy of 4 miles, and can't believe we went that far! We won't progress in OHR this coming week, because we have our second-ever 5K on Saturday. Good luck with your runs this week, everybody!

Iang999 all those symptoms; maybe you are taking things too fast, slow down a bit (the speed, not the weeks). It worked for me and my 268 pounds. I hope it makes sense.

I agree with this. I know it's hard to slow down, esp if you've read those posts on the big board where experienced runners post about being really slow on a particular run and their pace is more than a full minute or more than my fastest. It's hard not to think about getting faster. I still struggle with that. The key is to run at a conversational pace; if you could talk to someone (short sentences) during your run without a lot of trouble, that's an easy pace and that's what you need when you are basebuilding.

I agree about the fastness thing. It's soooo difficult to not be discouraged by the pacing, but making yourself run faster than that easy pace just means you'll have a terrible time later, or associate running with pain and suffering instead of that great feeling. Lately, I've really not paid attention to time at all- we map out a route of a length we want to do and then do it. I estimate the time to enter it into the log, but I'm really paying more attention to how far I can go, not how fast I can get there. I have faith in my fellows here and the expert books I'm reading that say speed will come with time. I have to get fit first- get used to the "feel" of 2mi or 3mi etc. As long as I'm getting out there 3x a week, I've decided to call that success. I'm infinity times faster than the girl who was sitting on the couch.

Sushi, you'll get there. Try not to focus on how long it's taking to finish the weeks; you don't want to lose your enjoyment of the run in the details. I haven't been posting much about my runs but I wanted to share about my run today. I went for a run and really tried to keep it slower than I've been going lately. I had no plans for how far I wanted to go but I wanted to go slower and just go for roughly 30-40 minutes. When I mapped my run, I found it was 4.27 miles (one of my longest runs) and about 35 seconds slower than what I've been averaging lately, but it was such a great run. (And it was a run in not quite rain, but just mist!) It was such a great run. I think if I stay at this slower pace, I can increase my distance. It felt like an easier run than my last few even thought it was further and longer. Slowing down works!

Great to have you with us. During C25K, stick with running three days to give your body time to adjust to the impact; your bones and especiallly your soft tissues between joints need time to get used to it. Crosstraining on off days is fine. Just listen to your body so you don't do too much and if you need to repeat days or weeks before moving on, that's okay too. Since you've done week one before finding us, you can move to week two if you are ready; we aren't too formal about runners joining at different times.

I swear I suck at this! I had such a difficult time tonight. I attribute it to one of these things: had to pee badly, overdressed, and didn't eat a lot today. But I got out there. Again, I'm STILL on week 6. MTA: I think that I am going to do week 6 over rather than try to do w6d3 over and over.

I think you're thinking too much about it. You're psyching yourself out. Watch - one day, it'll come and go like (hard) water. Just let it flow! To all the new runners, hello and good luck. For everyone I "know" already, keep going. I'm right there with ya.

sushigirl - don't be discouraged!! I have said it many times before... I repeated every single week. There was even one week... might have been week 6 I worked on for like a month solid... suck. I was really pissed but when I finally felt comfortable to move on it felt so great to have that "week" behind me. ivanhurba - yay for trusting the system!! It's surprising how that 1st 5 min run isn't the worst thing ever like you might think it's going to be. It was the first run that I surprised myself, and thought I had a chance and thought this program might actually work for me. Welcome newcomers!! It sounds well I ran a 5k.... in my basement I have been running the 30 minutes for a few weeks, and I'm running an actual 5k race on the 25th, so I wanted to get over the mental hump. I needed to know if I could actually do it. So I took it really slow covered up the time on the treadmill and only paid attention to the distance and it felt great! So I'm pretty excited to run the race now. I did better timing wise then I thought I would, and I know race time I could push it a little. yay.... for everyone just starting and thinking they suck (sushigirl ).. NOT TRUE!!! if I can do it anyone can! I just can't believe I ran 3 miles... and it felt good.