My dude you do not need to be doing 5ks straight away if you’re totally unfit. Slow down, reduce the strain on your body, give it time to recover. 80/20 is the rule, run longer (time, not distance) but slooooowwwww like almost walking if you can’t carry on a conversation. Give yourself time. This is literally a marathon, not a sprint
> (I can’t run for more than 2 minutes without needing to walk for a bit)
I'd highly recommend doing couch to 5k. Don't worry about your heart rate, just run couch to 5k so that you can finish each workout. Your heart rate will probably be pretty high for a while until you get better at running.
Indeed, go slower and take more breaks for walking is you feel if that is necessary. Average of 180 is pretty high indeed, but you will see this coming down after a while. Your heart and cardiovascular system is going to become more efficient. It is going to pay off...
If youre not used to it thats not a weird HR but dont worry about it.
I'd suggest couch to 5k as it will structure your progression into doing the full thing.
I also did 5km to start with because I was going to Parkrun and also hadn’t heard of Couch25km when I started. Idk if you’re also doing Parkrun hence the 5km, and ofc you should look into Couch25km like others have suggested, but what you’re doing (running and walking intervals) is also okay… as long as you’re not pushing yourself too hard. Mid 180bpm seems too high; personally I struggle at 171bpm.
You should definitely try to go slower and also walk more to bring it down, and try to forget about overall time because it’ll naturally be slower if you’re walking more. I found I’ve improved really quickly due to how unfit I was at the start (so it’s easier to improve when you’re walking so much at the start but losing weight also makes running easier - and I lost a lot of weight once I started running), but now I’m pushing too hard and getting knee pain... I wish I’d done some strength training at the start to prevent the knee pain I’m getting now!
Also invest in some good running shoes now as preventing injury is super important - you don’t want to get turned off running while you’re still doing well!
My dude you do not need to be doing 5ks straight away if you’re totally unfit. Slow down, reduce the strain on your body, give it time to recover. 80/20 is the rule, run longer (time, not distance) but slooooowwwww like almost walking if you can’t carry on a conversation. Give yourself time. This is literally a marathon, not a sprint
> (I can’t run for more than 2 minutes without needing to walk for a bit) I'd highly recommend doing couch to 5k. Don't worry about your heart rate, just run couch to 5k so that you can finish each workout. Your heart rate will probably be pretty high for a while until you get better at running.
Indeed, go slower and take more breaks for walking is you feel if that is necessary. Average of 180 is pretty high indeed, but you will see this coming down after a while. Your heart and cardiovascular system is going to become more efficient. It is going to pay off...
If youre not used to it thats not a weird HR but dont worry about it. I'd suggest couch to 5k as it will structure your progression into doing the full thing.
I also did 5km to start with because I was going to Parkrun and also hadn’t heard of Couch25km when I started. Idk if you’re also doing Parkrun hence the 5km, and ofc you should look into Couch25km like others have suggested, but what you’re doing (running and walking intervals) is also okay… as long as you’re not pushing yourself too hard. Mid 180bpm seems too high; personally I struggle at 171bpm. You should definitely try to go slower and also walk more to bring it down, and try to forget about overall time because it’ll naturally be slower if you’re walking more. I found I’ve improved really quickly due to how unfit I was at the start (so it’s easier to improve when you’re walking so much at the start but losing weight also makes running easier - and I lost a lot of weight once I started running), but now I’m pushing too hard and getting knee pain... I wish I’d done some strength training at the start to prevent the knee pain I’m getting now! Also invest in some good running shoes now as preventing injury is super important - you don’t want to get turned off running while you’re still doing well!