Started jogging-speed or distance?

i guess it depends on your ultimate goal. if it's to compete in long races (10 miles, half and full marathons, etc) then my suggestion would to be start with distance. speed will come. if you also want distance and you can only manage 15 minutes then slow down. you don't want to injure yourself especially if you've never run before.

If you want to be able to run longer distances, then slow down and build the amount of time that you are running. As you become more efficient, your pace will come down on it's own.

If your sole purpose is to burn the maximum amount of calories in the shortest amount of time, many here advocate High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT). It seems that studies show it will give you more bang for your buck for a calorie burn, but it's not a sustainable way to become a better runner.

It's comical how I see people here posting to one thing or the other, but not both. The best thing you can do is alternate speed days and long distance days. This will give you the most gains, you will gain the necessary speed while incresing your endurance by running for a longer period of time. As far as a long distance run, you want to work your way to 8:00 min miles, for speed, work your way up to 6:00 min miles. One of the best ways to do this is by having running at least 4-5 times a week, sorry but 3x week wont cut it here, maybe at the beginning since you are getting used to it. Have days where you do sprints, start with 4x at 200 meters, and work your way up to 10-12 sprints at 1/4 mile. You want to rest half the time it took you to run, so, if you ran that distance in 2 minutes, rest 1 minute and go. For long distance days, if you can only do a half mile, then only do half mile, but try to maintain your pace throughout, even if its slow at first. Every day that you do a long distance or long time workout try to improve on something, even if its really small. Try do go further every time, or just a bit longer, perhaps even a bit faster. Before you take a nice rest, can be towards the end of the week, do a FARTLEK run, its Scandinavian for "speed play". Just have sprint/jogging intervals where you always vary the distance you sprint and the distance you jog, for this kind of workout you want to concentrate on time, and not distance so much. Start with 10-15 minutes of a Fartlek run and work your way up to 30 minutes. This is just a suggestion, if you need to start lower, then do so, adjust accordingly. When doing a long distance run, you should be able to speak in short 3-4 word phrases, when your going all out, you should not be able to speak. Good luck.

It's comical how I see people here posting to one thing or the other, but not both. The best thing you can do is alternate speed days and long distance days. This will give you the most gains, you will gain the necessary speed while incresing your endurance by running for a longer period of time. As far as a long distance run, you want to work your way to 8:00 min miles, for speed, work your way up to 6:00 min miles. One of the best ways to do this is by having running at least 4-5 times a week, sorry but 3x week wont cut it here, maybe at the beginning since you are getting used to it. Have days where you do sprints, start with 4x at 200 meters, and work your way up to 10-12 sprints at 1/4 mile. You want to rest half the time it took you to run, so, if you ran that distance in 2 minutes, rest 1 minute and go. For long distance days, if you can only do a half mile, then only do half mile, but try to maintain your pace throughout, even if its slow at first. Every day that you do a long distance or long time workout try to improve on something, even if its really small. Try do go further every time, or just a bit longer, perhaps even a bit faster. Before you take a nice rest, can be towards the end of the week, do a FARTLEK run, its Scandinavian for "speed play". Just have sprint/jogging intervals where you always vary the distance you sprint and the distance you jog, for this kind of workout you want to concentrate on time, and not distance so much. Start with 10-15 minutes of a Fartlek run and work your way up to 30 minutes. This is just a suggestion, if you need to start lower, then do so, adjust accordingly. When doing a long distance run, you should be able to speak in short 3-4 word phrases, when your going all out, you should not be able to speak. Good luck.

Your post is full of misinformation.

First off, you have to have an aerobic base before speed work is 1) safe and 2) effective. Anyone that jumps into running and does the volume and intensity of running that you are advocating is very likely to end up hurt and/or discouraged and not get the amount of benefit from the fast work that they should. Plus, any gains would be short lived.

Secondly, you don't "work your way" to a specific pace. You train at the level that your body is capable of and by doing so, improve your fitness so that your pace naturally comes down. It is a disservice to tell anyone that they need to work toward a specific pace. 8:00 mile pace for a long run? That's not necessary to be successful. This 3:12 marathoner doesn't even run his long runs at that pace. 6:00 minute mile for speed work? What kind of speed work? Each workout is designed to develop a specific system or to simulate a specific race pace. If you plan to run every race at a 6:00 mile, then by all means run all your speed work at 6:00. If you plan to, like the rest of the racing population, run the shorter races at a faster pace than the longer races, then you need to do race specific workouts.

For a beginning runner, the most important things are as follows:

Run easy so that you build aerobic base.
Run easy so that you increase muscle and connective tissue strength in the lower appendages.
Run easy so that you continue to enjoy it.
Run easy so that you stay healthy.

I believe that it's more important for the runner just starting out to completely ignore pace and distance and just go out there and run for a specific length of time. Do 15 minutes today. Take a rest day. Do 17 minutes the next day. Build up slowly and gradually. Once you get to 30 minutes, increase the amount of time of one of those runs until you get it up to an hour. By then, a few months have elapsed and you are running maybe 15 miles a week. Then it comes time to either increase the intensity or increase the frequency. It's dangerous to try to do both at the same time. Which you chose will be a matter of you short term goal. If there isn't a race, then maybe continue to do the base work. If you have a race, do a little sharpening.

There is no cookie cutter "best way" to do anything, but there certainly are some things that are much higher risk than others. Jumping into fast running without an appropriate base is one of them.

Carson is a wise man.

Build endurance first and ask questions later (unless your only goal is to run for 15 minutes).

Listen to Carson.............. endurance first, speed will come.

I completely agree with Carson! I only added in speed work when I became hooked on racing...I wanted to medal and set new PR's.