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Plan, plan, plan. My story goes like this; I am a 34 yr old father of 3 (all under the age of 5), I work FT as a retail manager (no set schedule), I attend the University of Pheonix (online classes) FT AND completed the C25kfree program from April 14, 2014 to running my first 5k on Father's Day of this year. There are many factors to being successful, but for me there were 2. The first was for me. This was a challenge to myself saying that with all on my plate, I can do this and be successful! (Just finish my 3rd 5k at 24:00min flat). The second was for my family and their support. They understood that I would be out "running" 3 times a week for only a short time, but that would be a good thing down the road. We would make up the 1.5 hrs of my commitment on the backend. The only way to be successful is to plan each week ahead of time and stick to it. If you have the ability to have a set schedule, this should be easy, but if you are like me, this takes some thought. I was actually running at sometimes as late as 10 pm in my neighborhood because that was the day that I commited to. I have lost 13lbs since starting, but a bigger win is that I have dropped a pant size! The scale may not reflect your changes, but your clothing will!

Way to go! Keep going at your pace. A mile is a mile, doesn't matter how fast you do it. You're doing more than those who sit on the couch doing nothing. I had to laugh at the speed walker comment, because yeah, I'm the same way sometimes. But one thing I've noticed out on our forest preserve trails, when I get passed by a faster runner, they're always encouraging "keep going, doing great". I too find the first "start running" segment is always hardest, but then the subsequent sections get somewhat easier.