Hey, The time/distance thread got me thinking. Actually, I've been thinking about this for a while, and have expressed a bit of my worry about it, but thought I'd start a thread. Do you folks count your warmup/cooldown walks towards your miles and time? Or do you start the clock/odometer when the first run starts? I've been including all the walking, and it's inflating my time and miles run, but deflating my pace.

Dang. Maybe, since I use a treadmill and know what my walking pace is, I'll try at least taking off the 10 minutes total warmup and cooldown. That still leaves the walks in between runs, but that's how I was calculating before C25K anyway, so that won't skew anything. Anyone else?

I walk at 4 mph and run at 5.4 mph (kicking it up a little at the end of my last run), so to make it a little more accurate, I'm just going to start taking out 2/3 mile and 10 minutes (2 5-minute walks at 4mph) from my treadmill numbers. That makes it closer, at least. If my math is off, please tell me. I think it's okay, but sometimes I confuse myself. I was an English major!

Great, Quagga! That's a lot of working out.

May 3rd is completely doable! It's a nine week program, and you have 14 weeks until race time, so you can repeat some weeks and/or even work on speed a little before the race. Go for it! And if you're not they're already, you should join the ex-smokers group. The link is in my sig. Give us a report on how W1D1 goes tonight.

That's the spirit Lynneann! Good luck! I also think that a May 3 5K is totally doable for you. But what do I know, I'm a newbie runner! And congrats on giving up smoking -- what a gift to have given yourself and your loved ones!

I've been counting my warm up and cool down because I'm on a treadmill, too, and it's just something else to have to figure up/ do extra. I knew I was slow, but man, I had no idea how slow till I read this thread. I really pushed it today with pace on week 7, warming up walk at 3.2 MPH and running at 4.0 MPH and cool down walk just at 3.0 MPH. I'm 36, 5'3", 140 lbs, have had 2 kids and have high blood pressure (family curse - both sides ) I'm feeling very....discouraged. I was never athletic - were y'all? Is that the difference? Or are y'all younger with no kiddies??

Wingz is right -- it seems that there are all speeds around here. Any movement at any speed is better than no movement! I say you need to be extra gentle with yourself with respect to your running -- be more gentle with yourself than you are with anyone else in the world. It's more important to stick with it without punishing yourself than it is to achieve a certain speed. As for me, I am a born and bred couch potato. I work a desk job and am shockingly sedentary. I am 44 years old, ~5'1", and weigh 126 pounds, which puts me at the high end of ideal BMI, but I am not obese. If it weren't for the fact that I have been an ethical vegan since 1988 and have avoided eating a lot of processed foods (I still eat some junk food), I have no doubt but that I would be obese and ill. I am single, no kids. I push myself on the treadmill to run 5.0mph and if I had a heart rate monitor, it might counsel me to run a bit slower so I enjoy it more. When I started C25K, I had the treadmill up to 5.5mph, but I found when I eased up a bit, especially as the run durations became longer, I was able to finish the workout without so much of the sense of physically pushing myself. Anyway, that's been my experience. I hope it helps. I just think that for me, as a beginning mid-life runner and formerly sedentary person, I have a totally different set of needs and goals than other runners. I read somewhere that it takes the average smoker something like 13 tries before they actually are able to give up smoking. Well, I see giving up the habit of sedentary behavior as nearly EXACTLY the same kind of habit to break as smoking -- I'm substituting the habit of running for the habit of sedentarism. This is my second try at C25K and my third or fourth try to start the running habit. The difference this time around is that I have a small external motivation (a benefit 10K run in April) and I approached the whole thing this time with extreme gentleness about how hard I run--even though 5.0 is still pushing it a bit for me, it's not like 5.5mph. I'm firm about getting out and doing the run, but I'm gentle about how I think during the run and how hard I run. Anyway, I've gone on for way too long. Sorry for the ramble! Keep runnin' Tracey!