I’ve been doing the Couch to 5K program for a while now, and I’m currently at the last week of it. I can run for 30 minutes now, but at a much, much slower pace than the average novice runner at my age and sex (as I’ve seen when I looked it up, at least).

So what now? The program says that I should be able to run 5k now, but I can’t run it in 30 minutes, not even 40 at this pace. How do I increase my speed?

Thank you so much for the responses in advance.

EDIT: I feel like I might’ve been misunderstood. I can now run for 30 minutes straight, but way less than 5K in that time. The issue is that if I were to run 5K, I would be able to run it a lot slower than 40, let alone 30 minutes, at my current pace.

  • @ZigguratEnglish
    6•11 months ago

    At this level, I would say, run. It’s fine to struggle at first, but you should get a bit faster quickly. Objectively, 30 minutes isn’t bad at all for a 5km, have a look at your local 5km and tons on people do that kind of time, 20 minutes is already a well trained amateur, and under would be the realm of club runner.