Easy days? (Read 1037 times)

Well, I understand what you're saying, Willamona, but if someone had told me two years ago, "Start out by running 20 minutes, very slowly," I never would have tried it. Way too intimidating. The ONLY reason I started running was my friend saying, "You don't have to go far - just run from one telephone pole to the next, and then walk to the one after that. I'll go with you, too." Of course, I was terribly out of shape and 30 pounds overweight, so I'm different from the OP! I'm just saying that C25K worked for me because it removed the fear factor. I should add that my friend DID tell me to go very slowly, and that was a new concept, also, after feeling bad for years about being the slowest kid in the entire 8th grade.

Well said Teresa..sorry Willie

I hope to see you over in our C25K support group. (The link is in my sig.) It may seem slow with walk breaks at first, but it works. I finished last week and the ladies in our support group are awesome!

Just pick a pace where you are not breathing hard. That way, you are more likely to stick with running long term, if that is your goal.

I know what you are saying here and to an extent I agree that C25Kers tend to run too fast but maybe that is just all beginning runners. But I agree that 20 min would never have worked. Not non-stop. When I started I could barely run faster than I was walking and I was not disappointed in that it was just the way it was. But I also couldn't run for longer than a minute without gasping for air. It took me weeks to get to a point were I would be able to run at all without struggling to breathe and that was a reflection of my lack of cardio fitness. When I tried to run too fast it threatened my desire to stick with it but when I tried to run non-stop it did the same thing. Only now am I reaching a point where I am starting to understand an easy run and unfortunately when you are really unfit like me, an easy run isn't possible until you can do a less than easy run and when I started I couldn't do that. Now that I could, in theory run faster for a short time, I can slow down and maintain that and take a walk break now and then and then it is an easy run and I'm not out of breathe at all. It took me about 14 weeks to get here and I don't think I could have done it without intervals. For me one of the issues I had was getting a feel for what a slow pace should be. I asked around and received a lot of advice to run slow and not worry about pace but I was really trying to get an idea of how to run slow and how to find the right slow. Few people offered input on pace, mostly encouraging me to stop thinking about it (this was in a number of places, not this board primarily, I did get some advice here). I think it is good to encourage newbies to think about pace not to ignore it and the reason is that if they think about pace they will be able to concentrate on running slower. I know that veteran runners seem to associate intervals and pace with quality runs and the quest for speed but for me those are still things I think about to help me go slow enough. I think it would be a good idea to point out to newbies some advice about how to find the right pace. I now try to think that on an easy run I will run at a speed where I can imagine covering twice as much distance as I'm going to cover that day. So if I'm running 2.5K I'm thinking in my head that I should run slow enough to be able to maintain it for 5k. When I do that I end the run feeling like there is more in the tank and it is enjoyable and I'm more conservative early in the run and so I take more breaks. It I push myself to avoid breaks early in the run I pay for it big time later in the run. Not sure if that approach will work for other newbies.

I don't see a ton of disagreement here, but would like to chime in with a few points. I agree that most beginners run too fast, too soon. Hell, I have been running off and on for years and just last year started running higher mileage at a slower pace. I am not going to say anything good or bad about C25K because I am not familiar with it and haven't used it. I really need to side with willamona here. Just run easy for a while. I think when people say this doesn't work for them they are either not patient enough to wait for the results to come, and they will, or they get fixated on a number (pace) that they feel that they must be running. When you increase mileage and are running easy your are building endurance. Building is the key word here. It is a gradual process. You just don't wake up one morning and have all this endurance. I am now to a point where I can go out for a 12 mile run on a weekend and it does not impact what I do the rest of the day, but I had to do it for a solid 9 months to get to that point. As for pace, this also takes some practice to get it right. But don't get stuck on a number. Running 10 minute miles when it is 50 degrees and not humid out is much different than say 85 and muggy. This is why I run on feel. I bring my garmin with me, but only so I can log my run. I really don't look at much, and I don't get all uptight if it says I ran 8:45 pace or 10:00 pace (my easy pace is right around 9:15 on average). I've been doing it this way for a little over a year now. It took a while but my race times are starting to go down but more importantly, I just plain feel better. It just takes a while to get there.