Week 458 was posted by Charanjit Chana on 2026-08-03.
I found Couch to 5K an unbelievably good way to start pushing myself when it comes to exercise. I've used an exercise bike and often gone for long walks, but they're all very comfortable in comparison to running.
The program is really good and I'm now a massive advocate of the whole thing. I did try continuing with the graduation programs but found that the app would crash meaning I lost audio feedback and couldn't log the runs in the C25K app.
Custom workout
I found the custom workout feature for workouts on the Apple Watch to be really useful. I've set one up to start and end with 500m of walking around 4x 1km intervals. This gives me audio feedback and a clear goal to aim for rather than just running for a certain amount of time as the C25K doesn't actually use any of my Apple Watch or GPS data to determine speed and distance. It's all about endurance.
Tracking my progress
I don't have a real goal in mind, only that I want to keep it up and remain consistent. I've started tracking my post-C25K runs plotting them on a chart:
The lower the line, the faster I am (average pace) and at the time of writing I continue to surprise myself as I hit personal bests. The green line shows my 5K time, it continues to tumble and I've knocked about 3 minutes of my time. The whole thing is skewed by the including of 1km of walking, but it's a necessary warm up and knowing I will have a cool down just makes it easier to get through it all so they'll be staying.
Just knocking a few seconds of each time shows progress and as my weight falls slowly, running should just get easier and easier.
If you're reading this soon after publishing, you'll see one of my previous runs was not in keeping with the others due to a long gap between that run and the one before. Consistency seems to be key.
Tags: c25k