It’s a measure of how my mind works that once I’ve moved on from something, I tend not to know what to say about it. I cut my C25K training short after week 6 because I felt I’d got what I needed from it and I didn’t feel that persisting with the steady state runs in weeks 7 to 9 were going to be of benefit either physically or mentally. Regardless, here’s a quick recap of week 6 for reference.
Week 6 of C25K is the second microcycle that has three different runs. Day 1 is a 5 minute-8 minute-5 minute set of intervals with 3 minutes RI and day 2 is two 10 minute runs with a 3 minute RI. I did both on the treadmill and both went well enough. Day 3 is another long run, progressing up from w5d3 to 22 minutes. My training went mostly to schedule – the intervals were fine but I cut the 22 minute run short because I messed up the pacing and poor shoe choice. (“They’re the Wrong Shoes, Gromit!”). I was a little disappointed to not be able to round out that programme with a good run but having already done a 6 mile run earlier in the week, I very much felt like I was going through the motions.
Overall my personal experience of C25K has been good and useful, especially coming back from injury. The most useful part was being able to follow a structured program with a purpose that only required me to run for 20-25 minutes at a time and yet still felt like I was making progress. I can see the benefits of the program as an easy, good and accessible way of getting people into running, following the basic principles of starting easily with a run/walk sessions and building up to running continuously for up to half an hour at time.
Having said that, I don’t think there’s anything particularly outstanding about the C25K schedule that sets it head and shoulders apart from other beginners programmes. I also feel that it might benefit from some tweaks to the week 4 schedule as the run/walk intervals in that week seem to be based more on making the numbers look nice (the walk intervals are half the length of the run intervals). I will accept, however, that as I was working at a set pace rather than just running free, I would need more feedback from people to make a better assessment. It’s also just a matter of details.
I think I’d also prefer to suggest a running plan which did not have so much repetition of sessions. I think a lot of the challenge of starting to run is not so much physical but mental and I have a feeling that new runners would be quite able to cope with – and benefit from – a gradual progression for each run. C25K is perfectly fine, however, and some new runners may prefer it. An added bonus is that there are accompanying smartphone apps that can be used by runners to time the intervals and that may be a swaying factor for some people.
So there we have it, my C25K adventure is over. Time to move on.