r/C25K

I'm so proud of myself, so I need to share! I finished week 6 last week (W6R3 is the purple run around the lakes to the North of this image). I was on holiday in Copenhagen, and had my running shoes with me, and was determined to go out. This was, when warm-up/cool-down is included the first time my distance clocked over 5km, which felt like a truly incredible achievement.

The day after, I did a (long) coffee run as a recovery walk (orange). Then on my last day I did almost 5.5km with 10min intervals- leading to more than 30mins running- with sightseeing breaks in between (red). Looking back, I'm so excited with how far I've come. It's still hard, and I've lots to learn, but I'm definitely making progress, and most surprisingly, enjoying myself.

I've found a new hobby! I promised myself I'd treat myself to a new pair of shoes once I hit 5k, and when I found a shop online that was owned by a Danish company it felt like it was meant to be...

Week 7 next. Onwards.

I am fairly new to running. By fairly new, I mean I never even ran as a kid. Running has recently become sort of a hobby and I am really enjoying it. I am slow and improving. But I have noticed that whenever I am able to push myself beyond 5k, I develop this headache after 2-3 hours. It starts very mildly and I am able to ignore it. But around 4-5 hours mark it flares up. I am someone who regularly struggles with headaches, but this one has been the most surprising. Because I feel like I am hydrating myself and I am eating enough carbs before and protein after. Sometimes it feels as if it is because of a drop in electrolytes so I load up (not immediately). Sometimes it feels as if it is a sinus headache but that's unexplainable why it gets triggered after the runs.

Has anybody else faced it? Please help. I don't want to visit a doctor because of this.

I’ve been a cardiac patient since I was 32 when I had a cardiac arrest out of the blue (I’m now 44). I spent years working on my heart and jogging, but kept getting waylaid by illness. Then a year ago I had a cardiac relapse. I was allowed to start jogging again in mid-November, but couldn’t do much. Today I ran for 20 minutes without stopping for the first time since the relapse. I’m really proud of how hard I’m working to take care of my heart. I’ll get discouraged seeing how much faster others are progressing, but I have to remind myself I’m doing the best I can with what I have.

If you’re also working on this with a chronic illness/disability of some kind I see you and you’re amazing!

Taking a selfie after W6D3 with the National Grid route ZZA in the background.

So happy with that, 25 minutes non stop and at a pretty good pace. It was on a treadmill so taking it with pinch of salt haha

This July 4th is the 2-year anniversary of me not eating any processed sugar, and in that time I’ve dropped 70lbs and gained a new love for eating well and exercising. I’m still a little over 250lbs. so I’ve got a ways to go, but I decided in January that I wanted to start training to run a 5k. 

Before that, my peak physical fitness was in 2019 when I - one time - was able to jog for 20 minutes without stopping. I matched that when I did W5D3 at the start of June, and now a month later I’ve gotten up to 37 minutes straight on the treadmill. I’ve also separately been keeping up with strength training, so I’m without question in the best physical shape of my life right now. Which culminated in the race today!

I hadn’t done much running outside, and it was horrendously hot and humid, so I figured I’d need a couple walking breaks. Considering that, I was hoping for a finishing time in the neighborhood of 45mins, but honestly I’d have been happy getting sub-1 hour. But hot damn, 37:51 was WAY better than I was expecting. The run itself SUCKED, I did need those walking breaks, and by the end I was drowning in a pool of my own sweat, but I’m so happy and proud of myself for getting it done. 

Not sure what the next goal is right now, but getting to the point where I can run the whole thing without stopping seems like the obvious next step, then maybe trying to improve my time or give a 10k a shot. Very excited to try.

Did a 5k today on the treadmill. My watch GPS seemed to be lost in that though and didn't get the memo I was indoors 😂

My knees started burning about halfway, but didn't actually hurt. That was weird. Just a really warm feeling in my knees 🤷‍♀️

Tomorrow is a full rest day. Just going to deliver some chickens to a customer and grocery shop. Easy peasy kind of day.

My weekly 5k is done. I feel much improved speed and today I touched 5k PR as well.

The workout finished when I was still a little ways from home so I took a short walking break when the app told me to start cooling down, then ran for another couple of minutes, and then walked the last bit. It’s the first time I’ve actually hit 5k - very psyched about that!

Can’t believe there’s only one more week left of the program after my next run.

started my c25k journey this past week. determined to keep going, keep learning, and work my way to eventually doing a 5k one day. just happy to have finished the first week though, my muscles are strugglin' to adapt to this new impact. 😅

I just feel a bit rubbish.

It doesn’t really matter how slow I go, my breathing just becomes heavier by 15 minutes or so. I do enjoy the running—don’t get me wrong—and I know this program was never about getting to 5K in 30 minutes, but I just feel bleh. The numbers are all abstract to me, so I’m not really entirely even sure what any of this means.

Also, the PR don’t really mean anything. Turns out I was using Strava wrong at the very beginning (not sure how you can manage that).