Three years ago I joined this forum to ask about moving on from week 1. Our running group of 8 unfit mums had agreed that we would not move on to the next week until we were all happy to do so. At that point, running for a minute with a 90 second walk seemed to be as much as we could manage. It did not seem to be getting any easier but slowly we each felt we needed to try week two. We were down to one remaining doubter having repeated week one five times when I sought advice from here.
Obviously in a group of 8 there were going to be different fitness levels and other factors that would affect our running. Our last remaining doubter was a recent ex-smoker and described herself as having more than enough body for each of her children to cuddle. It would be fair to say that she was one of those that found it the hardest. I admired her determination and at no time did she ever consider giving up. We changed our plan and would always give the next run a try and then go back a week if any one of us felt it was too hard. We never had to.
As we progressed through the weeks she was probably the one that saw the biggest change. As well as the running, we had realised that the meals we ate (or didn't eat) the day before affected how our runs went. We started to eat healthier and so the rest of our families did too.
We completed C25K and then covid hit, we were forced to run individually. We all seemed to pick different ways to continue. There was getting less and less of our friend for her children to cuddle and at one point we worked out that as a group, we had almost lost the equivalent weight of one person, our combined weigh was only about 7/8 of what it was when we started.
We have less group runs than we would like and rarely do all 8 of us make it out together. Our now very un-cuddly mum stuck to her steady pace and slowly increased the distance she ran. We never believed we would make it to 5K when we started and I would have laughed at anyone that said that I would soon be running a minimum of 5K every day.
Today our friend announced that on Sunday she managed a 25K run without stopping. We are all so please (and jealous) of her achievement. None of the rest of us are anywhere near that.
We are going to find a way to celebrate her achievement.
What a wonderful and very inspiring story! This running game really does change lives and can positively impact that of those around us too. I love how proud you are of your friend’s achievement but you are all clearly part of each other’s success! Well done - keep running!🙂🏃♀️🏃♀️🏃♀️🏃♀️🏃♀️🏃♀️🏃♀️🏃♀️!
What a lovely inspiration post.Congratulations to all of you 👍🙌👍
It must have been tough to move from running and obviously being able to support each other on a group run, to having to run alone because of Covid. It's just brilliant that you've all managed to keep going.
And I love the description of your friend as having "enough body for each of her children to cuddle". I bet her kids are super proud of her achievements.
At one point there was a limit of 6 people so we ran as two groups of 4 (that just happened to be running in the same direction!) but when the covid restrictions were tighter it was tough.
Before C25K her weight had varied quite a lot as she tried various diets that never lasted and so her wardrobe had a variety of sizes. All he clothes were kept because she knew she would put weight back on and need them.
Her husband saw that this time was different and one day when she was standing there in baggy clothes he told her to go through her wardrobe and anything that didn't fit perfectly to get rid of and buy new. I think she kept a few pairs of socks but just about everything else went. As holidays were basically off the agenda, his yearly bonus was spent on her new outfits. He has said he is so proud of her and how she now seems to be so much happier.
What a wonderful story. It just goes to show that you never know where this running journey will take you and we can go a lot further than we think. Consistency and perseverance is everything.
What an inspirational post GottaImprove and how lovely that you’re still running together sometimes! I chuckled at your respond to dijep - I think the COVID rules resulted in some novel ways of people who ‘just happened’ to be running in the same direction at the same time!
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Week Six ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️, Run One of Ju-Ju’s Running Plan (5K)🏃🏻♀️🏃🏻♀️🏃🏻♀️ 🏃🏻♀️🏃🏻♀️.
Quest Target achieved, 10k of continuous running. 
