Running goals, motivation and chat 2025

[Jumbojem]

All welcome! A place to share or goals and achievements and to motivate each other along the way.
A virtual mumsnet run club perhaps?

I have been on a half mara chat group the last few years but currently not training for one. So, my 2025 goals are:
Now until spring - get fitter for a 15 mile hilly trail run event in April.
Summer - try for a 5k PB, try to get faster?
Autumn - maybe do a half mara? Cross Country again ( I am slow and old but love this).

Who else wants to join me?

But can you hold a target pace for the duration of the run?

I would usually have a target range eg within 10-20 sec per mile....which is similar to a race. If you said I had to do a 5 mile run at eg 8.30 min/miles , that might range between 8.25 and 8.40 for example. If I do a flattish race I'd expect the splits to be within about 15 seconds, a hilly race varies more

I tend to use a watch when I'm trying to run at pace as it takes the guesswork away. I also often switch a pace run out for an interval/hill session as I like those better. Tempo runs are easier to judge as you can time your first mile and then aim to make the next half mile faster and the one after that faster still and then reverse the process. I also have the advantage of being a Jeffer so I can speed up my walk break if getting to pace is proving tricy.

…but can you run within that range without checking a watch or having too fast/too slow alerts?

my internal speedometer seems to be out of whack.
sometimes a run that feels slow and hard turns out fast and a run that feels fast turns out slow...

have discovered a paced run on my watch, will try that.

anyone runs with a face cover in cold temps?
anything below 4 degrees hurt my throat.

Hello, I'm new to running. I'm a couch potato and need to get fit. My daughter is a keen runner so my plan was to run with her ...except she's racing on ahead happily and I'm panting keeled over by the pavement after 5 mins haha. Will be interested to know how people get started so they stay motivated to carry on.

I was the usual totally put off sport by PE teachers type- constantly moaned at for being slow and not trying despite wheezing my way around the school field.

I started C25k when recovered from a tough pregnancy/ birth as I was fed up of puffing everywhere, and once I could walk a couple of miles briskly again I started running because it could be done at night when DH was in and baby was finally sleeping off his cluster feeds.

To my surprise when you can vary your route rather than laps of a field, can choose to wear comfortable clothes, don't have an irate PE teacher bellowing negative comments at you, when you can go slow, and see progress because you're following a plan, it turns out that running is actually Fun!

I signed up for a fun run while in the late stages of C25k, so kept going up to 10k, blitzed it and found myself talked into a HM which happened to be the 1st anniversary of my first C25k run. And I've stuck with it since. It's me time, time in nature, a challenge, keeps me fit and the running community is lovely.

@Seekinginfolady i started with 5k walking the dog that gave me a bench mark time, then walking fast without the dog listening to a book or podcast or music. Then I started the C25K nhs app knowing I could walk a 5k in an hour and got to run/walking it in 40mins, then mostly running it in 37mins, then eventually running it non-stop. Then I started adding in sprints between lamp posts and went further 5.5, then 6k which made the 5k easier. This took me a year to get a 32min 5k, as I’m I my 50s and my joints niggle me like they do. Good luck take it steady and your get there.

@JanuaryOSunshine sounds familiar....'mid 50s with niggly joints'😁
I started with the NHS C25K plan and found it quite pretty good.

My goal this year is just getting outside twice a week and doing about half an hour. This will be on top of my regular cardio, weight training and pilates.
(2 years ago I couldn't even walk up a flight of stairs without having a rest, funny how things change!).

@Seekinginfolady my story is very much like @BogRollBOGOF. I enjoyed team sports at school (was never particularly good at them), knew how to swim and ride a bike, played a bit of tennis/badminton/squash in my 20s and then had children and didn't really do anything until my 40's. I'd never considered running as I had asthma as a child/teen and cross country always made me wheeze,

DH and I found ourselves spectating at mile 25 of a marathon when on holiday and I was inspired not by the elite runners at the front, but by the back of the packers in fancy dress. I thought if they could do it, so could I. I joined a C25K thread on here and just kept going

The fun run I did went past my childhood home and I'd sit and cheer each year and think "I should do it some day" never mind that I'd never run for more than 5 mins before ending up in a wheezy, stitchy, crampy walk. I even had notions about doing it in my ballet tutu.

I finally did it in my ballet tutu in my 30s 😂

I learned to swim at 16 too. School lessons involving teachers yelling into the general cacophany and flailing their limbs around did not teach me how to swim!

This just popped up on my FB feed - thought I'd share,

my teens came home the last day before lockdown with a paper sheet with a c25k plan.

I was also mid 40s with a squeaky hip.

love it. love the time for myself (unless running with teens) and really like the sense of achievement afterwards.

I also taught myself to swim front crawl head in aged mid-40s after years of breastroke. I spent hours Sat on pool side watching my kids learn and then compete and thought I really want to swim proper crawl so I did. Your never to old to learn stuff it just takes bit longer I’ve found. Not planning to run tomorrow just have a dog walk I tend to do a min of a 5k every day either run or walk before work but I’m not liking these dark mornings at the moment with sunrise not till after 8am.
Hope you don’t all get snowed in or have too much flooding to contend with I love running in colder weather but it’s tricky in these conditions.

I love Dumb Runner. I forward a lot of his cartoons on to running enthusiast DS 😁

I did my first run of the Runna postnatal recovery plan last night! It was warm-up + 6 x (2 minutes running, one minute walking) + cool-down, so lots of walking to start with, but DH very sensibly warned me not to try to do too much too soon. I felt great afterwards!

I’ve not run since maybe September/October and when the dog saw me in all my kit, she wagged at me like ‘pleased for you!’ And then hid under the sofa when she realised I was taking her with me 😄 she loves it really (mad spaniel) and was great once we were out.

I can definitely recommend Runna so far and got a week free trial of it. You get your running plan (choose goal, level and number of days), plus you can add strength, pilates and/or conditioning workouts to your training plan. Early days but it seems great!

Hope everyone else is having a great week!

@bloodredfeaturewall yes, I wear a cotton buff in the cold and pull it up over my mouth and over my ears (it's the only way I can get it to stay up), but I find it better to leave my nose free. Same as you, I feel like the air sort of burns in the cold.

Yes I've occassionally worn by buff like that when it's been really cold

I had to laugh at your spaniel hiding @BunBabbitBun - our spaniel is very hit and miss as to whether he wants to run with me. He loves parkrun though and goes nuts when we're all dressed and ready to go. He's very vocal at the start though so have to keep him well clear of the briefing.

That's a good feature of Runna if you can include cross training line that.

She’s so daft @chutneypig - she loves going out in all weathers and coming home covered in mud, but occasionally she decides she’d rather be on or under the sofa 😄

Your spaniel sounds lovely, we know one like him who loves to shout at the start of parkrun 😄

The cross training integration seems really useful. It’s the bit of running I’ve always neglected, and i think post-baby I probably won’t get away with it like i used to!

I'm a big fan of cross-training - it seems so much better for my body than pure running as I don't get niggles, which I always did when I was doing 35-40k per week. I'll need to do a bit more for marathon prep but planning to keep the cycling in. I will also try to keep the swims in - I'm not a big fan of swimming but it's good for the upper body and I will probably do some triathlons later in the year and need all the practice I can get!

I listened to an interview with David Roche (a 100k runner) how he runs only 'race pace) 5k in preparation but concentrates more on cycling for cardio and strength training.

Did a 5 miles beach run this morning, it was glorious.
When training I tend not to follow a programme, but reduce running the week before. I find Strava very helpful, when I am trying to get faster, I like the way it compares times with previous runs on the same route.

Long run for the week done on gritty trails. Some small slippery sections, but passable around the edges. The pavements are awful, and the mud in the fields isn't fully frozen so there weren't many route options avaliable!