I'm a 16 year old male and I've just started this week - running three times a week at about 3 miles.
When I ran today I had to stop to walk about 6 times, for about 30 seconds at a time. When I finished I was completely out of breath and my legs were really heavy. This was reflected in my time which was a poor 32 minutes.

Should I slow down and try and run with fewer stops to walk, or keep running at a similar pace until I can eventually cope with no walking at all?
.... or something else?

Also, I'm planning on increasing my distance by a mile after every 10 runs or so. Is this too much or too little?

Thanks.

Slowing down a bit is probably the answer Elliot.

Don`t increase your distance too quickly.(Around 10% a week is enough)

Keep us informed of your progress.

Good luck.

Your plan to increase mileage sounds fine, though i've no doubt you'll change it further down the line depending on whether you find it too easy or hard

For now i'd suggest just slowing your pace down a bit until you're able to run the route without walk breaks

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Ok, thanks. I'll run the same distance on Tuesday, but with a slower pace and see if I feel any better after the run. The one thing that I was wary about was if I go to slowly, I won't test myself enough, and will therefore not improve as much as if I started with a lot of effort. Will I still improve as efficiently when running at a slower pace?

Different types of training will serve different purposes...

Running short bursts quickly will teach your body how to... yup, run short bursts quickly!
Running longer distances slowly teaches your body how to run further. Generally speaking for most beginners I think there is more benefit in getting a good mileage base and making sure your body can run the distance for worrying about pace.

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Thanks for the advice. It really seems to be helping already.

I ran another 3.2 miles at a slower pace and this time I didn't stop once and I knocked 3 minutes off my last time.

I'll keep running at a slow pace until I can run a long distance. Then I'll start concentrating on speed. Cheers again.

That's good to hear Elliot - weird how going slower can sometimes make you faster...

Yeah, that's what I was thinking when I was typing it!

I was also considering running more times a week, maybe even daily, but I'm concerned that I won't recover between each day.

What's the best way to decrease the recovery time?
Is it just running more regularly and your body will eventually get used to it?

a combination of a number of things, the best things to ensure optimum recovery times are supposedly a good balanced diet and a decent nights sleep.

Running daily shouldn't be a problem as long as you don't overdo mileage or intensity, following a hard run with a nice and easy run the next day is the best bet to start with. And try and make sure you have at least one rest day - at least to start with anyhow! I'd like to say I was a reasonable runner and I still only run 3-4 times a week (though I do tend to play football and goto the gym on other days)

Agreed on all points - distance always before speed. Eventually you can fit in "quality" runs to improve your speed. Since I started doing one tempo and interval run a week I've found that even on my long runs my pace has picked up a little and it's easier too...

Anyway, one very very very important point to make is consistancy! And I don't mean doing exactly the same week in, week out, but making sure you do something regularly... that way, as you thought, your body eventually gets used to it... when you're running your in essence not just training your muscles to get the right strength, but your metabolism also, as this affects obviously how your muscles cope with endurance blah blah blah. So yeah, obviously at the moment you don't want to over-do it and you should have as many rest days as you feel neccessary, but in the future you'll probably be able to add a day or two ever so often, and before you know it you may well be running every day. But yeah... as richardsimkiss said, don't over-do it! Wouldn't want to be injuring yourself before you've barely stared. Anyway good going and good luck with everything in the future!

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