Today I want to share with you my tricks for running your first 5km (3.2 miles).  Whether it is a race or a casual jog around your neighborhood, running 5km is a big accomplishment.  Now I am no professional trainer, or anything fancy like that, but I recently got into running so I do know a couple tips that really pay off in the end.

START SMALL

If you never really have ran before do not assume you can run 5km on your first try.  It usually doesn’t work like that ;).  Trust me, this was me when I started to run and my ego totally had a reality check in my first minute of a light jog.  

When I first started out the farthest I could run was 400m without stopping.  It’s not that I was out of shape (because I was very much IN SHAPE), I just didn’t have any endurance to keep me going.  Now, after 4 months of intense training (in the summer I would run once or twice everyday) I can run a well-paced 5km without stopping.

What I would suggest on your first run is make your goal 1km.  If you can easily do 1km without stopping, pick up your pace and if you can’t do it, keeping trying until you can and then go from there.

LISTEN TO SOME GOOD TUNES

It is very hard to enjoy running if you don’t jam out to your fav songs (aka High School Musical, Frozen and Hannah Montana) while running.  I like to use Spotify to put my favorite upbeat songs together on a playlist.  I find this motivates me to keep going because I want to run until my all time favorite song comes on (I Gotta Go My Own Way- Gabriella Montez)

TRY OUT A RUNNING PROGRAM

I really found following the Nike running program extremely helpful when I was just starting out.  It motivated me to run on a daily basis and establish a ‘running schedule’.  The Nike app is also VERY good at count how far you run, your pace, route and time.

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For me personally, I like to compare my times to times to other people to see what the ‘average’ time is.  Honestly their really isn’t a ‘average’ time but sometimes it’s nice to see if you beat the ‘average’ that the computer says.  These are my averages.

NEW RUNNERS:

1km- 7mins

5km- 40mins

MY TIMES:

1km- 4mins 30secs

5km- 25mins

*Now please keep in mind that I have been running for a couple of months so do not feel as though you should be running at this pace*

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I hope that you all feel inspired to give running a go! (but make sure to stretch properly before hand;)

Happy Training!

Love,

Em

Over the past year I have started to practice yoga.  Yoga has made me happier and relieved stress from my busy life.  I try to take yoga as much as I humanly can but things, such as school restrict that.  My solution to that is taking yoga before school!  Yes, that’s right, I voluntarily get up at 6am to go to yoga.  But I just love it so much that I don’t mind doing this.  My new goal is to get my yoga teacher training certificate before I’m 16.  This a very extravagant goal but I feel as though with much hard work I will accomplish it.

Also, in July, I started to run.  Before then I could not run 400 meters without stopping.  It’s that I was not physically fit, I was, but just in a different way.  Unfortunately being able to hold your leg up high in the air doesn’t make you a great runner.  I had terrible perseverance.  I remember the first time I went for a run I was so proud of myself for running 1km and only stopping 4 times!  Now after 3 months of training and over 250km later, I can run 5km without stopping in 25 minutes.  I am truly so very proud that I can do this because I never thought that I would be able too.  

But one downside to all of this is that running makes you a worse dancer.  As some of you may know, I’m a competitive dancer.  As a dancer we all strive to have all of our splits and be overly flexibility, but now I actually can’t become more flexible, I have reached my maximum.  This is because running, as much as I do has really tightened my hamstrings which doesn’t allow you to be flexible.

So what I am trying to say in this very rambly post, everything is good in moderation, but if you really want something you have to put your heart and soul into it.  Now don’t get me wrong, running, yoga, and dance have all put me in incredible shape (I even have an actual 6 pack) but you have to make sure you don’t over do it.  If I had know that running does this to your hamstrings I probably wouldn’t have pushed myself so hard when I was training.  But whats done is done and now I just want to inform my lovely readers about my experiences with different physical activities.

Thank you very much for reading and have an amazing day!  My challenge for you is to try yoga or go for a quick run today, your body will thank you in the future ;)

Love,

Em