C25K success stories?

I am not exactly a success story but hopefully will be some day. I am in week 4 now. I couldn't do 30 second jogs to start with but now I can do 3-5-3-5 minute jogs. Hopefully in a few weeks I will be able to do 5K. I would totally register for 5K. That would be good motivation.

P.S. At the end of the program, I could run 25 minutes without stopping but that wasn't a 5k. So I just kept going adding 5 minutes every week until I could run a 5k without stopping.

I'll be a success story.

I weigh 280 lbs.

I did week 1 last week, I completed all 3 days. I went from 2.5/3.5 to 3/5 over the course of the week. This week I'm repeating week 1 and trying for 3.5 and 6 mph by the end of the week.

Getting off the "couch" is the first success.

I'm doing c25k right now week6 day 1 I'm on. I was never a runner and last night I ran for 20 mins it was awesome. If you or anyone needs motivation friend me be glad to help out. Good support is awesome to help get through as I found last night. I have had to go back and do a few days but I'm moving right along good luck you got this.

Last year in an attempt to show my son that I am more than just talk, I agreed to walk the 5K in the Bluenose Marathon. Somewhere along the way I thought I may as well train to run it. So I started the C25K program. When I finsihed it I was able to run the whole 5K, and you have no idea how proud I was of this accomplishment, and I have been running every since.
I totally reccomend it, I started thinking I was crazy and that I couldn't do this, but I made it through. I even inspired some coworkers to come to the gym with me at lunch and train and we all ran it together.

Keep up with it, it is hard at times but you will make it through!

I did the programme late last year and loved it. I followed the first few weeks religiously though I had to repeat week 3 however from about week 5 I discovered I could go a little further and ended up doing 5k (in about 37 mins) by week 7. I am in my 40's slightly overweight and never run before or done any other sports apart from lots of long walks with my dogs. There were sessions when I had had enough and wanted to give up but the structure of the programme tends to be fairly easy to stick to. Having the option to run outdoors, straight from home also meant that I avoided excuses re driving to a gym, not having time etc.

I never quite made 5k in under 30 mins but I did find that running 5k on a weekly basis is quite achievable though I am off running at the moment due to an injury.

Best tip I could give is take the running parts very slow. Even if you think you are slow go even slower as it is so easy to run to fast in the first few weeks and then give up as it gets too hard

I did it about 7 years ago, love the program and it works. You may have to tweak it for yourself but you will be doing more all during it and after than you would have without it!!!! I am currently finishing week 7 and have a 5K scheduled for March 16th!!

Try to do it outside rather than on a tread or track, it makes a huge, huge :bigsmile: difference!!!!

Good Luck!

I started the program January 1st this year. I have stuck with it week by week and I am now able to run the entire 5K. I can't run it in the 30 mins that it wants you to complete it in but I am down to 38 mins. I have my first race March 16th and I'm hoping I can get my time down more by then. I'm just excited I can go the whole distance without stopping, there were times I never thought I'd make it running even 1 mile. You can do it, just stick with it!!!! Also in that time I have dropped 16 lbs

I started the C25K program 7 weeks ago. I started on Week 3 because I didn't have 9 weeks until my first 5k and because I felt like my endurance was good enough to start there. I went all the way through the program - some days were easy, some were not - but it worked. I ran my first 5k last Saturday without stopping. I finished 81st out of 268 people, and I'm happy to say that I'm now an average runner.

You can see my before picture in my profile - but I was 270ish pounds at my heaviest, and definitely skinny fat, very little muscle at all. If i ran I would get terrible shin pain that prevented me from running. When I was about 220 I tried C25K never having been able to even run a mile straight pretty much ever in my life (I am very top heavy with weight distribution)

Simply put the program worked for me - and even over a year later I am able to run the occasional 5k when I feel like changing up my training a bit, just going out and running for a straight 30 minutes without stopping was a huge huge success for me, so I definitely encourage anybody to do it.

TLDR: I went from probably an 18min mile to a sub 30 min 5K with the program

At the end of the nine weeks, I was not running a 10-minute mile to get in the full 3 miles in 30 minutes (and I'm still not...yet), but I was running for 30 minutes straight. Since then, I have just kept running until I made it to 3 miles...depending on how I feel that day/my pace, it takes me between 32-37 minutes to run 3 miles. Before I started the program, my friend and I registered for a mud run that was 12 weeks away. It was great and something I would have wanted to do but never would have done if not for completing couch to 5k. Definitely register for a 5k to keep motivated and have something to look forward to when you finish. I've done 4 mud runs since then and some other fun run 5k events because they are a lot of fun and they keep me motivated to keep on running...I like to run now, but I'm not sure I would do it as consistently if I didn't keep an end goal. Also, since my end goal is a mud run, I don't have an excuse to not run in the rain because I'm going to get dirty at the event anyway, so I may as well get used it. I think eventually I will be able to keep myself motivated to keep running without a running event every other month or so, but I'm doing well like this for now and having fun, so I don't want to rock the boat haha! Good luck! You can do it!!

i cant claim to be a success story lol ...i am the furthest thing from a 'runner' ...but i made my first attempt at c25k in novemberish and managed to get as far as week 5 before the holidays hit and things went down the drain lol.
when i started week 1 i was sucking wind so bad just jogging for 30 seconds ...but by week 5 i was feeling good and was able to do so much more.
i recently decided to give it another try and am going to work on week 2 this week. hoping to make it all the way to week 9 this time lol.
i've been suckered into a 1/2 marathon as well as a 5k, both in june ...so i better get moving! lol

good luck!
it's worth it!