What's the hardest week/run?

[Toadie]

Sorry if this has already been asked, but I couldn't find it recently and I wanted to canvas opinions. I just did my first session yesterday and had lots of people say to me that the first run is the hardest. Obviously I'm hoping that's true! But people who are a bit further along the track, which run or week do you think was the hardest for you? Which bits should a new starter prepare for mentally?

Thanks!

[flyboy]

I'm only through three weeks, so I cannot give you an answer with complete feedback from the course. Thing is, it will be totally subjective; there will be people who start the program in reasonably good shape and cakewalk the first few weeks, and those who had to redo the first week.

For me, I can say that the first run of every week has been the "hardest" so far! I don't think I've sweated as much as I did on my W1R1; W2R2 felt like the step-up from hell; and right now I'm contemplating whether to re-do W3 before embarking on W4, given that my progress has felt quite minimal this week.

Please don't take that as discouragement though. It has been a thoroughly invigorating process, and there's no greater feeling than when you hit your second or third run of the week and find it considerably easier than the first.

[lbswfc87]

For me the interval runs after the twenty minute run were hard.

But it depends what time you go running, weather, what you've done that day if you run late, some feel easy others feel a lot harder

[Digbycat]

I really took a long time to get past week 1 that was tough for me but week 6 last week was a disaster I'm repeating it this week.

[Toadie]

Hmm, I guess it must just really depend on the person. I just did my second run this morning and found it quite a bit easier than the first, but really just because I knew what to expect (eg uh-oh, here comes run number 5, got to push through this one and then it'll be plain sailing).

I've felt so good since my run first thing this morning though - already looking forward to Thursday's run!

[Jbutler]

I think the first run was the easiest mentally, physically it was challenging because I was obviously terribly unfit, but mentally I was motivated and excited to do it. I think w5r3 was a challenge mentally because it didn't seem possible, physically it was a challenge as well but compared to the first run when I could barely muster one minute runs I felt pretty good. For me the harder runs came when the intervals stopped because I had less and less prompts. Now that I've completed the program I sill have a difficult time motivaing mysel to go out and do long runs, but I love racing and have done a race every week for the last 6 weeks. The races give me goals. My pace is slowly improving and this past Sunday I finally completed a 5k in under 30 minutes (29'03) my next goal is to increase my pace from 9'24 to below 9, with a goal to get my overall time below 27.

Do whatever it takes to stay motivated. I ate donuts or ordered pizza to reward myself for sticking through some tough weeks.

[lizmizje]

I did my first interval run (W6R1) after the 20min run yesterday and was surprised how difficult it was! After nailing the 20 minutes, I thought this would be easy. I think that I tend to start off faster during interval runs, as I think, oh, it's only 5 minutes! I started the 20 minutes as a snail, as I wanted to make sure that I can keep on running until the end

[thereyet?]

It has been a surprise which runs ended up "easier" or "harder". I'd agree that the interval runs after the 20 minute run was especially challenging, but there are a lot of variables at play. The biggest and best surprise is that you repeatedly accomplish more than you think you can, so even the hard runs are making your body stronger. Keep at it! I am in week 8 and am in disbelief! Good luck!!