As you progress through stage one of the beginners running plan, a few things are going to affect how much ground you cover. So you are likely to speed up your pace a little over the first 5 weeks, which will make a small difference. But the biggest factors in the amount of distance you will cover each session are is the overall time out there and the amount spent running during your session. Remembering that you’ll need to...

I am busy with Stage 2 of the plan myself right now and am learning lots about how to structure this phase of the training appropriately. I am finding that the important things at this stage are: Making sustainable increases in fitness Avoiding injury or exhaustion Beginning to enjoy running Not beating myself up when I don’t hit where I want to be. I have been getting lots of inspiration from Leo Babauta at Zen Habits on how to form...

Stage One of the beginners running plan is based around a training calendar. This regimented approach is for two reasons. Firstly, to get you into the habit of going out and exercising regularly. Secondly, to make sure that you have enough rest days built into your training programme. It can be very tempting to surrender to your enthusiasm early on in a new exercise programme and exercise every day. That is bad idea. It’s bad because;...

Is running for me? Running is a very simple form of exercise, all you really need to succeed is a little patience, some confidence about what your body can do and the right training plan to build a base level of fitness that you can go forward from. When you think about running or exercising regularly, does any of this sound familiar? I am not an athlete and regular exercise does not come naturally to me. I feel starting a diet and exercise...

Do you want to lose weight, keep weight off and stay healthy long term? Yes? then start running. Running is a great exercise to choose for effective long term weight loss. While running you’ll burn more calories per hour than with most other exercises. It is free, easy and has great side effects such as reducing stress and giving you a “feel good factor” through healthy endorphin hits, your body’s very own mood...

This week things are going to start to get a little bit more demanding as the intensity of your whole programme shifts up a gear. In Week 2, you started to introduce jogging spurts in your brisk walking sessions but took the time to recover fully after each. No doubt you will probably have felt those jogs become a little easier over the course of the week and will have noticed that you needed less time to recover in your last session, compared...