Up until that point I had never run 3.1 miles without stopping or without a lacrosse stick in my hand. My goal to run a 5k was an attempt to start losing baby weight after Second Daughter was born. It was a good start, even though I didn't lose it until a year later :)
For all of the races I have run since, I have followed a training schedule similar to this one.
For my first race, my training looked more like this:
It is a training schedule I created myself, to help ease me back in to running.
I learned pretty quickly that running even one mile was very difficult for me at that time.
My idea was to run as far as I could every day, and then to walk until I reached my mileage goal.
I started the first week at one mile. I ran every day as far as I could, and then walked until I totaled one mile. Sometimes I walked a little further. The next day I tried to run a little farther, and then walk until one mile. I did this every day of the week until Saturday, when I made myself run the whole one mile without stopping. It wasn't easy, but it was doable, and I felt great being able to complete that weekly goal.
The next week I increased my mileage goal by 1/2 mile. I did this every week until I could run 3.5 miles without stopping. I then had a few buffer weeks to keep up my endurance until race week.
The great thing about this training schedule, is you can modify it completely to fit your needs. If you don't quite reach your goal one week, you can take another week to reach your mileage. Or, if you can't run every day, run 3-4 days a week and take two weeks to reach each 1/2 mile goal.
The training schedule also doesn't need to end at 8 weeks. You could keep going and keep increasing your mileage until you reach whatever your goal is.
For those of you (like I was) who haven't done much running at all, this may be a better option to get you started.
Happy Running!
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