c25k

kaylz0106

I've been running/power walking on and off for 5 months but started c25k properly on last monday so yesterday I did week 1 day 3,while my question relates to yesterday specifically I can't see it being limited to only then. Two questions really....

1 - So on Monday, I could barely run the min at a time and found myself looking at my watch after about 35 secs and wishing the min was up but yesterday I was happily running the min and a couple of times I went over the alloted min but found that when I was slowing down from the jog to a walk my leg muscles were killing me and I had to stop a couple of times to strech out the muscle which I've never had to do as I always do my streches before leaving the house a 5 min walk to warm up and then another strech before running at all. My question is does this mean I should try running for a little longer and walking less?

2 - Did anyone who did c25k find a big difference in week one and week 2? week 1 is 1 min jog 1.30min walk and week 2 is 1.30 min job and 2 min walk....I'm wondering if the leg pain (as explained above) is still going to be them same?

Thanks

bonjour24

i did c25k last year, so it's kind of fuzzy now. i remember that the first few weeks i'd run short of breath before my legs hurt. then a few weeks in my legs would be killing me. tbh, i'd just run through it thinking it was because i was so unfit.
when you walk, do you do a stroll or do you keep up the pace? i used to try and walk as fast as i could without getting my breath caught.
i don't really know what else to suggest. maybe it's just a case of practicing and getting those legs used to it. but i'm not a dr!
good luck.

langurmonkey

When I did it I did each of the early weeks (1-3) twice just to make sure I could make it through without hurting myself. The muscle pain does stop happening after a while :-)

colgosling

I am doing c25K at the moment and am on week 6! I was the same for the first week, the first run was a missions but somehow it kept getting easier. It was always the first time I upped the minutes that would have me out of breath and hurting the most.

I find that it isn;t until the second time of running on any one day that I find my rythem and this helps with the legs hurting. Try and change how you are jogging, even just slightly! I find longer strides and less impact makes my legs hurt less, if this means I run slightly slower thaen so be it but you soon get comfortable enough once your muscles get used to it the speed up.

Hope this helps

Masterdo

Maybe do some research on walking and running form. I just did Day 1 of Week 5 tonight. In the first weeks I had trouble, and it would most of the time manifest during the walking intervals rather than the run ones too. By analyzing my form though, I found that when I'm really tired, I tend to walk longer strides and have a much harder heel strike than when I either run or walk normally. That would lead to calves and ankle pains, just during walking...

So yeah, definitely make sure to properly stretch, and also check your walking and running form. The first few weeks are also the ideal moment to do that, since you transition between the two so much anyway.

Another thing might be the shoes. Depending on what you find out for your running form, you might also find out that your shoes are not actually fit for that running form (for example having motion control or heavy stability shoes to help with overpronating when you don't actually overpronate).

Good luck with this, C25K is really a nice way to push yourself once you fix all those little things