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.

  • cyborg
    2•1 year ago

    That’s perfectly normal if you’re a novice runner and you did not do many cardio activities. When I did C25K my 5k time was around 36 minutes. To improve your time you can look into different training programs, which will often consist of speedwork and increasing overall millage and ensuring your form is good. You’re not going to get fast overnight but you can gradually improve your running speed.

    There is a lot of training programs online that you can try. If you want guidance from an app I found Run With Hal to be pretty decent.