C25K Question: Is there any reason to *not* run daily?
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gramarye
Posts: 586 Member
After running a mile in a stretch exactly one time (and what a glorious mile it was, being my first and all), I rapidly realized that I needed something more structured to keep it up and improve my running. So, hey, I'm starting out a C25K app. Cool, cool.
I tend to do walk/jog daily on weekdays, and don't on weekends; it keeps me on habit because it gets folded into my work routine. The app I have has three runs per week. If I'm taking adequate rest and not pushing myself too hard too fast, is there any reason I can't also do my usual walk/jog on those two off days?
My instinct is that it'll be fine, but I was curious if anyone had any experience or insight to offer.
Thanks!
I tend to do walk/jog daily on weekdays, and don't on weekends; it keeps me on habit because it gets folded into my work routine. The app I have has three runs per week. If I'm taking adequate rest and not pushing myself too hard too fast, is there any reason I can't also do my usual walk/jog on those two off days?
My instinct is that it'll be fine, but I was curious if anyone had any experience or insight to offer.
Thanks!
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Replies
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Walking is fine. I work out 7 days per week, and usually 2 or 3 of those is walking or swimming.0
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Cool, thanks! I'm not very fitnessy (running is the only thing I actually like), so it's a blind spot for me. I don't always trust my instincts there, lol.0
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In running, as with all things, your body gets stronger by putting it through stress then allowing it to recover. If you do not give it adequate recovery time, you will find that you will not progress nearly as fast and you will also be far more susceptible to injury. When starting out , you have to resist the urge to overdo it. Most runners take years to progress to the point that they are running daily. You would be better served to do something other than running on those days. Walking, yoga, cycling...lots of options.0
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when I did C25K I always walked on my off days.
I ran M/W/Sa and walked all the other days. Lifted M-Th...just as long as you take adequate rest you will be fine.0 -
No reason at all. Listen to Nike, and JUST DO IT! All kidding aside, I know people who run 7 days per week (I know a guy who just hit a 10 year streak... hasn't missed a daily run in 10 years). I run 3 days a week and cycle and weight train 3 days per week. Occasionally I'll take an extra maintenance day and rest.
The only thing I'd suggest is that you should never forget to listen to your body. If you start feeling any pain or discomfort from any activity, your body is trying to tell you something. Just be sure to listen to it.
Awesome job taking up running! It helps to have a plan to keep you honest and on track. Make sure you check out your local running store to see if that have any clinics or programs for beginning runners. These too will help keep you on track and also put you in touch with people of similar ability levels. Running in a group can add a whole new dimension to running.
Keep up the great work!1 -
If I'm taking adequate rest and not pushing myself too hard too fast, is there any reason I can't also do my usual walk/jog on those two off days?
So you say yourself that you're not starting from a particularly solid fitness base. Cardiovascular fitness improves pretty rapidly, and you could potentially find that running consecutive days are achievable from a CV perspective. What the rest days in C25K allow for is improvements in your musculo-skeletal system that running continuously demands.
The many run streakers that you read about, are generally already experienced runners before that starts, and maybe run no more than a mile some days.
That is not to say that walking every day is an issue, but I generally wouldn't advocate using the C25K plan every day.
Essentially in the C25K group on here there are regular posters who essentially choose to ignore the plan, they generally disappear about half way through, sometimes complaining of injury, sometimes they just go dark.
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You aren't talking about running 7 days a week, but 5 days, right? And you've already been walk/jogging that often -- this isn't a sudden increase? Given that, I think it's fine. You just don't want to suddenly jump up the miles you are running or minutes/hours.
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I agree with the above posters who state that the days off are essential. You gain improvement through both the physical act and the recovery period. If you do not allow your body to recover your improvement will be slower and you greatly increase your risk of injury. C25K is going to have you increasing your mileage over time, as well, something you probably haven't been doing much of to this point. Even experienced runners have to carefully increase mileage over time (no more than 10% more miles from one week to the next). If you're following a C25K program it's going to have that built in and if you're running on the days between you'll be putting in too many miles, again increasing your risk of injury.
I lost track long ago the number of people who have been in these boards I've read complaining of shin splints and other injuries because they thought it was okay to run every day at the start or were doing high impact aerobics or a similar activity on the days between runs. Don't be a statistic.
Stick with something low impact on the days between runs. Walking is fine. So is riding a bike, swimming, using an elliptical, etc. I'd actually highly suggest strength training, though. It'll help your running along with its many other benefits.0 -
running is hard on your joints, especially as a beginner. I would advise finishing the C25K running 3 days a week, doing other low impact exercises the other days if you want. Then try adding a fourth day. If that seems ok for a couple of weeks, add another day and so on.
Conservative is the way to go, running can produce some nasty overuse injuries, and they can be hard to get rid of. Not worth the risk IMO. Build up your mileage slowly, never increasing by more than 10% per week.
Now if you jogged 6 days next week, your legs wouldn't fall off and you wouldn't keel over. But over time if you increase too fast injuries can sneak up on you and that's no fun
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I just finished C25K, and I absolutely recommend taking days off between runs. I try to run 3 days a week, do strength training 3 days a week, and take one day completely off. I would do something completely different than running on your non-running days: swimming, weight/strength training, yoga, cycling, something other than putting your feet down one in front of the other around the neighborhood/treadmill. It's how you get injured.
Just my $0.02. Good luck!0 -
The reason is to avoid injury, especially as a beginner. Try doing power walking j tervals on the off days, just not running. Just finished c25k. For me, I don't care whether I run or not, but I always want to be able to walk. Most of my running friends h as very injuries from pushing too hard too fast, some have issues that will permanently affect their walking gait. It's serious stuff.0
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lemurcat12 wrote: »You aren't talking about running 7 days a week, but 5 days, right? And you've already been walk/jogging that often -- this isn't a sudden increase? Given that, I think it's fine. You just don't want to suddenly jump up the miles you are running or minutes/hours.
Oh yes, sorry if I was unclear. I've been working up to running sporadically for years -- I tend to dip off in winter, etc -- and since the beginning of the year I'd been either walking or jogging 4 -5 days a week. So it's less jumping in from nowhere, and more using C25K to (hopefully) improve my running endurance and speed. (I'm very slow, lol.)
That said, thread advice heeded. I will make it a point to keep my walks easy on off days, and resist the urge to push too much too soon. Thanks for the insight and advice, everyone. 0 -
I agree with the above posters who state that the days off are essential. You gain improvement through both the physical act and the recovery period. If you do not allow your body to recover your improvement will be slower and you greatly increase your risk of injury. C25K is going to have you increasing your mileage over time, as well, something you probably haven't been doing much of to this point. Even experienced runners have to carefully increase mileage over time (no more than 10% more miles from one week to the next). If you're following a C25K program it's going to have that built in and if you're running on the days between you'll be putting in too many miles, again increasing your risk of injury.
I lost track long ago the number of people who have been in these boards I've read complaining of shin splints and other injuries because they thought it was okay to run every day at the start or were doing high impact aerobics or a similar activity on the days between runs. Don't be a statistic.
Stick with something low impact on the days between runs. Walking is fine. So is riding a bike, swimming, using an elliptical, etc. I'd actually highly suggest strength training, though. It'll help your running along with its many other benefits.
This is all really interesting information; I didn't know any of that about mileage.
I've been trying to work up the nerve to venture over to the weight room on Tues/Thurs, because I know it's a good decision for my overall health, but social anxiety keeps me out. I'm working toward it, lol; I got as far as walking in after my run last week, looking around, and then leaving.
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RunnersLament wrote: »No reason at all. Listen to Nike, and JUST DO IT! All kidding aside, I know people who run 7 days per week (I know a guy who just hit a 10 year streak... hasn't missed a daily run in 10 years). I run 3 days a week and cycle and weight train 3 days per week. Occasionally I'll take an extra maintenance day and rest.
The only thing I'd suggest is that you should never forget to listen to your body. If you start feeling any pain or discomfort from any activity, your body is trying to tell you something. Just be sure to listen to it.
Awesome job taking up running! It helps to have a plan to keep you honest and on track. Make sure you check out your local running store to see if that have any clinics or programs for beginning runners. These too will help keep you on track and also put you in touch with people of similar ability levels. Running in a group can add a whole new dimension to running.
Keep up the great work!
is that relevant to the OP's starting fitness base?
I ride 80+ miles per week and lift 3x per week...I'm pretty fit and it's good exercise for me...it would be a crappy idea for someone just getting into fitness because they don't have the base.I agree with the above posters who state that the days off are essential. You gain improvement through both the physical act and the recovery period. If you do not allow your body to recover your improvement will be slower and you greatly increase your risk of injury. C25K is going to have you increasing your mileage over time, as well, something you probably haven't been doing much of to this point. Even experienced runners have to carefully increase mileage over time (no more than 10% more miles from one week to the next). If you're following a C25K program it's going to have that built in and if you're running on the days between you'll be putting in too many miles, again increasing your risk of injury.
I lost track long ago the number of people who have been in these boards I've read complaining of shin splints and other injuries because they thought it was okay to run every day at the start or were doing high impact aerobics or a similar activity on the days between runs. Don't be a statistic.
Stick with something low impact on the days between runs. Walking is fine. So is riding a bike, swimming, using an elliptical, etc. I'd actually highly suggest strength training, though. It'll help your running along with its many other benefits.
OP...^^^This.
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MeanderingMammal wrote: »If I'm taking adequate rest and not pushing myself too hard too fast, is there any reason I can't also do my usual walk/jog on those two off days?
So you say yourself that you're not starting from a particularly solid fitness base. Cardiovascular fitness improves pretty rapidly, and you could potentially find that running consecutive days are achievable from a CV perspective. What the rest days in C25K allow for is improvements in your musculo-skeletal system that running continuously demands.
The many run streakers that you read about, are generally already experienced runners before that starts, and maybe run no more than a mile some days.
That is not to say that walking every day is an issue, but I generally wouldn't advocate using the C25K plan every day.
Essentially in the C25K group on here there are regular posters who essentially choose to ignore the plan, they generally disappear about half way through, sometimes complaining of injury, sometimes they just go dark.I agree with the above posters who state that the days off are essential. You gain improvement through both the physical act and the recovery period. If you do not allow your body to recover your improvement will be slower and you greatly increase your risk of injury. C25K is going to have you increasing your mileage over time, as well, something you probably haven't been doing much of to this point. Even experienced runners have to carefully increase mileage over time (no more than 10% more miles from one week to the next). If you're following a C25K program it's going to have that built in and if you're running on the days between you'll be putting in too many miles, again increasing your risk of injury.
I lost track long ago the number of people who have been in these boards I've read complaining of shin splints and other injuries because they thought it was okay to run every day at the start or were doing high impact aerobics or a similar activity on the days between runs. Don't be a statistic.
Stick with something low impact on the days between runs. Walking is fine. So is riding a bike, swimming, using an elliptical, etc. I'd actually highly suggest strength training, though. It'll help your running along with its many other benefits.
Agree with these folks. I am a fan of 3x a week with a mandatory non-running day in between each running day. After 3 months or when you can run 30 mins/5k continuous (the longer of the two, never less than 3 months) you can add a 4th day. After another 2 months or when you can run 60 minutes continuous (again, the longer, never less than another 2 months) you can add a 5th day. That's just my rule of thumb.0 -
I'm a little over half way through C25K right now. I tried to run 4-5 days a week when I first started and my shins started killing me! To the point that I was limping even on my off days! It took almost 2 weeks of resting without any exercise before I could start again. Now I only run twice a week but I do low impact cardio and lifting 5 days a week. I would say don't push it with the running, take it slow.0
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I would recommend to ease into it to get a running base. But if you insist on running daily, you should be doing recovery runs at least 2, if not 3, times a week. At your level of fitness, your recovery runs may be more walking than running, just to avoid injuries.
As you get more proficient, your recovery runs would be shorter, easier runs, such as 30 mins at talking pace. I've trained 6 days a week before with 2 of those days being recovery, and those recovery runs are vitally important. But I also had a good baseline endurance.
Probably better still is to run the 3 times a week, and do full body or core weight training on the alternating days. This will probably improve your running better than 6 times a week of only running, until you can get ~20 miles weekly of running. Then run 4 times a week with two weight days.0 -
Another vote for easing in. I did the C25k a couple of years ago. Then I got bit by the bug and wanted to increase my mileage quickly. I ignored the 10% rule because I felt fine and that the extra days were easy. Ended up with an overuse injury and out of commission for a few weeks.
I think your plan of walking those days and then building up to 5 days of running is sound... Also strongly agree with the suggestion above to work in full body/core work on alternate days as an option.0 -
RunnersLament wrote: »No reason at all. Listen to Nike, and JUST DO IT! All kidding aside, I know people who run 7 days per week (I know a guy who just hit a 10 year streak... hasn't missed a daily run in 10 years). I run 3 days a week and cycle and weight train 3 days per week. Occasionally I'll take an extra maintenance day and rest.
The only thing I'd suggest is that you should never forget to listen to your body. If you start feeling any pain or discomfort from any activity, your body is trying to tell you something. Just be sure to listen to it.
Awesome job taking up running! It helps to have a plan to keep you honest and on track. Make sure you check out your local running store to see if that have any clinics or programs for beginning runners. These too will help keep you on track and also put you in touch with people of similar ability levels. Running in a group can add a whole new dimension to running.
Keep up the great work!
My running club does 100 days of running every year where you run at least 3 miles a day for 100 days. There are many who don't finish, some due to injuries. The ones who were successful at completing it without injury were the people who were strong, long time runners with a solid base.
I am not totally against consecutive running, however, the base fitness plays a huge role. I would not advise someoen who is new or has been sporatically running jump into it.2
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