Egads! I think I've been doing it wrong! Should I restart?

CannibalisticVegetarian

First off I'm new to the group, so... Hiyas! Nice to finally have a group dedicated to one of the programs that I'm itchin' to complete. Before I begin, here are ze stats:

CW: 174? (I'm doing a 'no scale' challenge for my sanity so I couldn't tell you how much I weigh at the moment)

C25kStat: W2,D1 completed today. I do the C25k 2 ...sometimes 3 times a week. Usually on Tuesdays and Thursdays (and that rare Saturday). Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays are reserved for "New Rules of Lifting For Women".

Goal: To run a 5k....someday.


Anyway here's the thing: I've tried the C25k program a number of times in the past and each time I've fallen off the bandwagon promising to get up and start over anew. I'm 2 weeks strong in the program this time around and I kind of started it blindly so I never really knew what pace was 'too fast' or 'too slow'... That is until I checked some of the threads found within this group. My usual brisk walk is 3.6 and my jogging varies between 5.0-6.0. I feel so silly for pushing myself like this when I should have been jogging at a MUCH slower pace.

So I was wondering----Do I start over anew and change the speeds to fit that of the program, do I tweak my speed and resume my w2,d2, or should I just push on? The speeds that I am working with now aren't KILLING me... Like I can finish my 25 minutes (BTW is it 5 minutes of walking followed by 20 minutes of alternating walk and jog, or 20 minutes of EVERYTHING?) with slight difficulty (i.e. definitely sweating bullets and in need of water) but surely not flopping over near death like that one time I tried my hand at Insanity. I'm not trying to justify anything. It's just time that I finish what was started so long ago. I wanna do it the right way so that I can one day successfully finish a 5k.

Thanks in advance and sorry if it's a tad lengthy.

likitisplit

You'll continue to adjust your approach throughout the program, so I wouldn't worry about doing it "wrong". It doesn't sound like you're derailing yourself by going to fast (yet). Try slowing down to see if its more fun. Otherwise you can wait until the longer intervals become more challenging.

bttrthanevr

No need to start over, just take it down a notch next time out. You should be fine. The goal for C25K is to be able to chat about the movie you just saw while running it. If you can't carry on a conversation, you are taking it to fast. Also it sounds as if you are already decently conditioned cardio-wise, so don't let that trick you into running more than you should. Your muscles and ligaments and bones still need time to ease into running regularly. C25K is perfect for building that.

asalembier

I would stay where you are, and just keep moving forward.
And the program is 5 min warm up, followed by whatever the program of that week is, followed by 5 min of cool down to be approx 30 min of exercise.

Week 1 - 5 min warm up, 20 min of intervals of 1 min run/ 1.5 min of walking, ending with 5 min cool down
Week 2 - 5 min warm up, 20 min of intervals of 1.5 min run/ 2 min of walking, ending with 5 min cool down
Week 3 - 5 min warm up, Then do run 1.5 min/walk 1.5 min, run 3 min/walk 3 min repeat once, ending with 5 min cool down
and so on while it continues to increase running while decreasing walking.

Good luck! You can do this!

CannibalisticVegetarian

Ah! Thanks a lot for that! I'm happy that I don't have to start over and even more happy to know that I'm not totally wrecking myself with what I'm doing now. I'm gonna pull it back a wee bit.