Hi all I was hoping for some advice with regard to where to start with running.

To put you in the picture I'm a complete beginner. The only running I do is on a treadmil at the gym. I seem to tire very quickly when I try to run outdoors, my mum reckons that a treadmil has a bit more give and you can pace yourself a little better on it.

This year I am hoping to get in shape (I am quite overweight) enough to think of applying to join the police.

Anyway I'm not sure what kind of targets I can set myself, I try to jog along the canal near where I work around 2-3 times a week for half an hour but find I have to stop constantly and I struggle to maintain a job for much more than 2-3 mins before needing to stop.

However put me on a treadmil and I can jog for 2.5miles no problem as long as I keep my speed at around 4.5mph. I think to get into the police I have to be able to run a mile and a half in 14mins but I would like to take running up for the benefits it'd provide me fitness wise. I did try the 1.5 mile in 14 mins once on a treadmil but was probably a minute or so out after running at 5.5-6mph. Mind you I felt like I was running flat out and it wasn't a nice experience at all.

I weight quite a lot at 159lb for my 5,2" frame. I do some weight training at the gym which no doubt contributes to this, I also swim and cycle so the weight thing is deffo down to a bad diet which I am trying to rectify. I think I have quite short legs as well and while 6mph is flat out to me it seems to only be a gentle jog for some. Is this something that I can improve on?

Can anyone suggest what sort of speeds I should be aiming to maintain and for how long? I'd settle for being able to do the 1.5mile in the 14mins but I think this is done outdoors so at the moment I'd struggle badly.

Any advice would be most welcome!

Welcome to the forum, Wingfinger

I've always found that treadmill running is different to running outside, don't really know whether one's harder than the other.

As for speed / distance, I suggest you just keep at it for a while. Once your body gets a bit more used to it, you will likely increase both fairly rapidly, especially since your basic, core fitness will be decent from doing weights and swimming. 1 1/2 miles in 14 mins is about 9? mins per mile; not too challenging. How fast you can go for how long really depends on you yourself though, everyone's different.

My suggestion - Just keep doing regular runs maybe 3-4 times a week for a couple of months, and see how you go. Perhaps you might like to try one of the numerous fitness programmes you can download. If after two months of decent effort, you're not yet at your target, give it another month and really concentrate on upping your distance and / or pace each week.

If the Police let you join, please send my regards to Sting

there's totally no problem with stopping !
don't run until you HAVE to stop, set yourself a target time, walk for say 30seconds, a minute whatever it needs and repeat for your 30mins (or less).

you WILL feel it get easier and then you can tweak the times to rest a bit less or run a bit longer.

i agree with katten get a month or so of basic running in and then think about speed
personally i hate treadmills these days, but i started off on them. the biggest difference i found was how weak my ankles were when i went over to road running.

__________________

I started with run/walk because I had to, I couldn't run for more than a couple of minutes without being totally puffed. I was overweight and a new ex-smoker. I think the slow build up did me a lot of good because it gave my body time to adapt and has lead to years of injury free running despite doing crazy stuff.

Re-treadmills. It is a lot easier on a treadmill, because it moves underneath you. Despite the springyness they can lead to injury, because you land in exactly the same way every step. So if you want to use a treadmill, vary the angle from time to time and also get out on some softer surfaces.

Good luck with getting fit and getting fit enough to join the police. In the early stages patience and regularity get the best results.

__________________
www.getmarathonrunning.eu
www.getultrarunning.eu

Thank you for the excellent advice folks. I shall keep trying on the treadmil and running along the canal when I get the chance. My friend who was a cross country runner says that to get back into it after an absence she had to do something like run 2mins, walk 1min, run 2mins.

My aunt has offered to do a bit with me too as she runs as well. Another question I have is where can I download the beginner programs that you speak of?

Also i'm just wering ordinary trainers with no air sole or anything, would I be best to invest in another pair (my old ones are pretty gubbed anyway).

Just need to try and get the weight off too but I imagine the running will help with that. I've started to make changes to my diet last week and am 2lb less already. Only another 26 to go.

i think a bit of googling would turn up a number of sites for training programmes.

just looking on the uk runnersworld site and i found this:
treadmill to road running:
http://www.runnersworld.co.uk/news/a...N=3010&v=3&sp=

beginners index:
http://www.runnersworld.co.uk/news/article.asp?UAN=1461
(some subscirber only stuff)

getting started schedule (8weeks):
http://www.runnersworld.co.uk/news/article.asp?UAN=30

like i say you can probably find similar on a number of different sites... i suspect the beginners run/walk schedules are all pretty similar.

__________________

Thanks for those webpages ed_m. I think I'll try the first one but might start at around week 2 or 3 as I could probably do up til stage 4 or 5 on a treadmil just now.

I forgot that there was a mile circuit around my local football stadium. I'll maybe try this program on that too just to see how far I can actually run (may have to stick to week 1 when i try that mind you).

Think you would also get a pretty unanimous recommendation from everyone on here to invest in proper running shoes - visit a specialist running shop where they can do a gait analysis to make sure you have the right shoes. A key contributor to staying injury free in my opinion. Good luck - I only started two years ago (at 52) and can't imagine not running now.

__________________
Don

Well I looked out a pair of lighter trainers that will have to do for now.

I normally like to go for a walk along the canal near my house so today I combined that with the first step of the beginners program that ed_m gave me. I did 1min running 1.5min walking and repeated this 8 times without much problem. I suppose that's the biggest step out the way. I found I enjoyed it and covered a lot more of a distance than I thought I would which is very encouraging (I think the time I was doing it covered about half of the distance I normally walk). I found the time actually flew by whereas when I'm running on a treadmil the minutes seem to drag by.

I was a bit aprehensive that I'd be too embarassed to do it if there were people about but there were a few workmen and some dog walkers but I just decided to go for it. There was a lady out walking a dog that was quite a bit in front of me and I thought to myself "ah that's OK I'll never catch up with her anyway). Turns out I overtook her after only running a couple of minutes. Really must find a way of discovering how much distance I've covered.

for a simple method wingfinger... goto http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/ type in your location, followed by "UK" and it'll locate your local area. e.g. mine would be Warwick, UK. You can then switch to Satellite view if needs be to give you an accurate view of the canal, then just click 'start recording' and click your route on the map... easy as pie even has a calorie calculator to help work out how much cake you can treat yourself to afterwards

EDIT: just to let you know there are plenty other sites that are similar, I just recommended that one as it's fairly basic and simple to get to grips with.

Hi richard, the satalite doesn't zoom in enough for my area (well zooming in to see that much of Falkirk might break peoples monitors I suppose) and the normal view doesn't include the canal. Quite an interesting site anyway though so thanks for that!

What I may do is go down to the stadium where there is the mile track round it and that way I should get an idea of how much I've done.