Couch to 5K, 5 Years On: The Truth

I wrote this for YOU, but actually it reads a bit like a letter to my younger self

Back from my first 5K, 22nd May 2020. That boy turned 10 last week!

My phone reminded me the other day that it’s FIVE YEARS since I completed Couch to 5K which also means it’s ALMOST FIVE YEARS since some men in a van shouted “keep it up, fatty!” at me while I was out running.

(But it was another three before I turned it into a hit Substack newsletter — and by hit I mean more like “minor Britpop band who had a couple of songs you vaguely remember but aren’t sure if they were Gene or the Longpigs” as opposed to Taylor Swift.)

I know a lot of people who’ve started Couch to 5K more than once, but never got to the end. I also know a lot of people who’ve completed it, and then never really run again.

No offence but what a fucking waste of time that was (50 unsubscribes incoming?). Presumably if you downloaded Couch to 5K it’s because you had a goal of “becoming a runner” or at least incorporating more regular movement into your life, and it hasn’t happened.

As that smug nightmare who not only kept it up — now for more than 10% of my life to date which doesn’t feel insignificant — but made it their entire personality, I thought it was a good time to reflect, and share some learnings.

One important fact: I think my story is hard to replicate in 2025, as I came to running in some extreme, hopefully never repeated circumstances. It was spring 2020. I got into running out of desperation — I found lockdown utterly, utterly miserable and when people say “oh, I quite liked it actually!” I want to physically maim them (30 more unsubscribes from people with a junk modelling corner and a sourdough starter in the… fridge? Freezer? Bread bin? I still don’t know what a sourdough starter is and I never will).

In February 2020, I started a Head of Content job at a startup; it was my first full-time role since having kids and I was excited about commuting a few times a week into a nice Old Street office. Within three weeks of joining, we were in lockdown and my children — then 4.5 and just turned 2 — were at home 24/7. My daughter didn’t sleep through the night and my commute was now to the desk in her bedroom, often with her treating my body like a soft play experience. I was also in the grip of premature menopause symptoms (you can read about my experience here if you can’t get enough of menopause content). I felt absolutely bloody awful. I had panic attacks. I felt like I was terrible at my job and a terrible mother, because neither had my full attention. When I have fleeting moments of feeling like that now, five years on, during the school holidays or with a deadline that’s seeped into the evening, it feels like Professor Chris Whitty could shuffle into the room at any moment to announce some gravely serious news.

Most of all I felt completely stir crazy. Despite not being someone who exercised, I’d always been someone who likes getting up and showered and dressed and leaving the house. I love a schedule, I love an errand, I love having somewhere to be. In fact, I’ve only ever stayed at home all day if I’ve been ill. When people say they stay in their PJs all day UNLESS THEY HAVE ANY DEBILITATING PHYSICAL OR MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES I think they are gross (100 more unsubscribes but why not have a shower first and then decide if you really mean it?).

So yeah, I felt like moving around. I had actually started doing a little bit of exercise in the months before — a bit of swimming, a bit of Joe Wicks-ing — but I had never really run. But suddenly I wanted to. It wasn’t run-fluencers that made me, as there weren’t as many of them then and I certainly wasn’t following them, but I must have been absorbing stuff about midlife, along with the fact that the less fit and well you were, the more dangerous Covid seemed to be, because every (sourdough) fibre of my being was telling me: RUN, RUN FOR YOUR LIFE.

Thankfully, we’re not there now. However, people still get urges like mine, for a variety of reasons, but might not always commit to them long-term. So here’s what I’ve learned about keeping it up, whether fatty, thinny or in-betweeny.

Be more tortoise

I don’t know if everyone can enjoy running, but I can tell you that previously I hated running and all forms of exercise more than anyone else I know, and I am now addicted. I generally run three times a week and strength-train twice. My bare minimum is two runs and one strength session, and on those weeks I feel a bit shit. It is just what I do now. SO WEIRD.

My belief (backed by a lil qualitative research) is that the vast majority of people who maintain that they hate running are making it too hard for themselves. If you consistently feel like you’re going to puke, you are almost certainly trying to run too fast. If you’re a newbie, you’re meant to be slow and shit, and the best thing you can do to begin to enjoy it is slow down even more. The Couch to 5K technique (run/walk intervals, with the running bits increasing as the weeks go by) is a brilliant, accessible way into running, but it can encourage you to push too much on the run bits because you know you’re going to get a break. If this sounds like you, it might be better to just keep going for as long as you can, as you won’t be so tempted to go out too fast. BE MORE TORTOISE. If you keep at it, you will naturally get faster over time, probably quicker than you think. An amazing friend of mine did her first parkrun three months ago, with a time of over 42 minutes. She’s been every week since, and is down to sub-32.

That said, there is a barrier to get past; on the other side of it, you’ll find that the feel-good buzz outweighs all the negative feelings, from breathiness to sweatiness to plain old self-consciousness. That is where you are trying to get, so do all you can to minimise the feel-bad bits, whether that means changing your route, your outfit, the time of day you take yourself for a spin, and you’ll get there faster.

Running probably won’t get you your dream body

I’m generally about 15 to 20kg lighter than when I started running but that has very little to do with running and everything to do with changing my eating habits. Between April and August 2020 I was running three times a week and, while I noticed a little more muscle definition, I did not lose a single pound. It was only when I brought in strength training and food-tracking that I lost weight.

However, while running alone hasn’t made me lose weight, it has represented a mindset shift for me and made it easier to maintain healthier eating habits. I don’t drink as much alcohol, because I hate doing parkrun hungover. I try and focus on protein (how many times have you read the word protein today?), because I want to be strong and recover well. And basically, it just feels a bit counter-productive to do loads of exercise and then eat crap.

I’ve been quite shocked recently reading people’s accounts of losing weight on Mounjaro or similar, and admitting — or often, stating almost proudly — that they don’t do any exercise. Not only does it totally obliterate any claims that they are losing weight “for health reasons” when regular exercise is the very best thing you can do for your health, but it’s really short-sighted. Because while exercise alone probably won’t make you lose weight — especially if you’re a woman in or approaching midlife — it certainly makes it easier to maintain it while eating fairly normally.

I’ve been at the bottom of my weight variation range when I’ve been running very long distances ie. marathon training, but only in conjunction with less booze and more focus on food as fuel. The trouble is, a 20 or 30 minute run does not actually burn THAT many calories, and you’re quite likely to eat most of them back afterwards without realising, so getting skinny is not a good motivation to run. I’d argue that “getting skinny” isn’t a very good motivation for anything, but we’re stupid like that aren’t we?

Of course, this might be different for people who are more naturally lean and have fast metabolisms — the sort who lose half a stone and develop abs of steel just running for the bus — but they probably aren’t signed up to a Substack called Keep It Up Fatty!

Yes, it’s boring and annoying isn’t it.

You won’t keep getting faster forever

When I “graduated” from Couch to 5K, my running pace was around a 12 minute mile. These days… it’s usually between 10 and 11 minutes. For a while there, as I turned my shock new hobby into an actual habit, I was getting faster all the time, but ultimately, I’ve reached a sticking point that only changes when I’m lighter than I can comfortably maintain: basically only when I’m training for long-ass races and closely monitoring what I eat.

My goal for this year is to get back down to a sub-30 5K — something I’ve done about five times ever, and all when I was a few KG lighter than I am now. Which means being very boring with food and drink. Again. Sigh.

It can be frustrating for new runners when their pace plateaus which is where it’s a good idea to mix things up: sign up for stuff, get really nerdy about parkrun, go and run somewhere you haven’t been before, join a run club, basically set some non-pace related goals — and you might just find that your pace improves a teeny bit in the process…

The mental health benefits of running might flip

We know that running is an amazing brain boost, but what us pathetic addicts don’t often share is the reality of how that works: these days, it’s no longer “Running makes me feel good!” but “If I don’t run, I feel TERRIBLE and want to murder everyone.” This is why periods of illness and injury can be extra brutal for runners. I know people who’ve got through these setbacks by developing new, equally insufferable hobbies, like cold water swimming and hot yoga. Others just bitch and moan, or throw money at the situation (pretty sure I dropped close to a grand on plantar fasciitis treatment in 2022).

Oh and… sorry, you are not too busy

Plenty of the busiest people in the world are also very into exercise. “Honestly, you really don’t understand how busy I am, I couldn’t possibly!” you protest. Still not true*. If your life is really so busy that you can’t take half an hour to devote to your physical and mental wellbeing, then this is not a brag or a status symbol, but a warning sign of future burnout or worse.

Instead, the true state of affairs is more likely to be that you do have the odd half an hour “free” but you choose not to spend it exercising because you’d rather chill out with a book/boxset/smoking hot lover. That’s because exercise just isn’t a priority for you right now, or perhaps because the barrier to entry feels too high. You know that there are people around you enjoying, or at least addicted to, exercise, but you can’t see how that could be you (this was me for 39 years; I get it!). And that’s fine, if that’s where you’re at, and we all have seasons in our lives when it’s really tough to exercise, whether because of work or kids or health or all of the above. But you should probably try and do it at some point. I’m not going to give you annoying ‘90s lifestyle magazine tips about getting off the bus a stop early, because I’m sure you can figure it out yourself when the time is right. And if you’re reading this, there must be some little part of you that wants to.

When I’m most motivated to run, I happily jump out of bed at 6am to get the miles in before the day starts properly. Other times? Nah, I just fit it in where I can, and know after five years that fluctuations are normal. Because I’m addicted, I do always fit it in somewhere; it’s just sometimes a case of only going for 20 minutes rather than 45, which is key to keeping up the habit.

*If you are a single parent with a full-time, always on type job, I’ll let you off. But please, try and get some support or carve out a minute or 20 at some point, because your health is VERY IMPORTANT and your children will thank you when you can still wipe your own bum at 92.