Advice for new fat club member

Hi all. I'm a new runner, encouraged having just finished an 8 week walk - 30 min run programme with no problem. Although I've lost 3.5 stones so far this year, I have about the same again to go, so am taking it steady.

I've just gone up to a proper running programme, and headed out for a 25 minute race pace run today (I'm running around 11 mins per mile for long and slow, 9.5 for race pace but max 15 mins at this pace until now). After 15 mins I was totally pooped, and quite discouraged.

While I still have so much weight to shift, am I better to work on the distance gradually, and leave off the (relative!!) speed work?

By the way, I never post on this type of forum, but I feel there are quite a few kindred spirits out there!

Pumbaa, the fact that you're running and have persevered with the programme so far is brilliant. Well done!

It's up to you where you go from here. It would be reasonable to concentrate on increasing your distances at your long run pace, but if you want to do speedwork it might be worth putting tempo runs (runs at race pace but for less than race distance) on the back-burner for a few weeks and doing shorter speed sessions instead - fartlek (where you run a bit faster from time to time during your steady road runs), intervals (running at race pace for short distances - 200m would be plenty at present - and getting your breath back then repeating the process 4 or more times) or striders (a few fast stretches at the end of your steady run) would all fit the purpose and wouldn't leave you feeling as tired as 15 minutes at full tilt.

The advantage of speedwork, when you have weight to lose, is that fast running raises your metabolic rate for longer AFTER the run than slow running does. It also trains your muscles to work efficiently at speed so your long runs will become quicker too.

Keep posting - there are indeed a few hundred kindred spirits out here! Look forward to seeing you on the Fat Club thread tomorrow, and no doubt Blue Knees will soon have a nice warthog pic lined up for you.

Cheers, V-rap.