Ben Outofit

At week 4 I don’t think you have enough data to determine if your pace is improving. I just started week 8, and while I notice a minor increase in distance, I am also spending a little more time on the track. Time on the track varies up and down through the program, and time walking versus running does too ( though later running is only going up). Seems like day 1 of each week I deliberately slow my pace, so I have enough wind to run through the run phases, however I seem to mostly increase my distance over time. It has been, for me, only 22 days on the track, and I have good and bad days. My pace goes up and down day to day, but my endurance gets better every day. Once I am running 5 k regularly, I expect my pace to improve logarithmically, I.e., steep gains initially that plateau as I reach my body’s best.

I have the same problem. When I was 30 years younger and fit, running 5 miles a day I was breathing hard too Years of sitting behind a desk, weight gain and getting back into running with c25k it seems worse. I run on the track at the Y where it is level, a little springy, and climate controlled helps a lot. I also find that distracting myself takes my mind off it. Listening to music, counting rhythms, just musing, I don’t notice the difficulty breathing as much, even though my pace doesn’t change. I am on week 8, just finished day 1, and I am 5 minutes in and feeling like I can’t make it. By minute 15 I am distracted and am contemplating running and extra 5 minutes. As soon as I focus, though, I start noticing the heavy breathing, and struggle at the end. Being distracted is probably not good for improving time, or if your out in a less controlled environment, but it gets me through my runs.

I’m new to C25K. I’m 57 and used to be in very good shape, running 5 miles a day. Went sedentary for the last 2 decades and started back into power lifting about 3 years ago, but tore a rotator cuff about a year ago, so I’m getting back to running and cutting back on the powerlifting some. I actually started week 6 this morning. It is tough to stay motivated though. The app said 2.6 miles this morning but I was sucking wind the whole time, since day 1 week 1.