Major milestone:

<26 minute 5K race; started Runcoach in February and posted this time June.

What is the secret to your success?

Combination of Runcoach training schedule and working directly with Tom

What is the biggest obstacle to reaching your goals and how do you get over it?

Not knowing how to prepare myself physically or mentally for races and for races of different distances. Not knowing how to achieve my physical potential. Getting beyond past beliefs about my potential.

What is the most rewarding part of training?

The encouragement, the consistency, the steady increasing fitness, the low pressure environment , the variety of workouts and results that came much more quickly than expected.

What advice would you give to other members of the Runcoach community?

Focus on your own goals, listen to your body and your heart. It is what you think about you that matters. Embracing these concepts has helped this be a fun, rewarding and enlightening experience for me. I hope this is a lifelong journey for me of one foot after the other on the trail, track and road.

Anything else you would like to share?

I am very grateful to Tom and the entire Runcoach team for their diligence in helping me achieve my early goals in a healthy, fun and supportive environment.

What feedback would you offer on the Runcoach experience?

The gradual increase of fitness was key, especially as an older novice runner. The surprising part was how quickly my fitness increased to new levels on a fairly regular basis without feeling like a grinding experience. The variety of workouts is so fun. I was a little hesitant at first given my lack of experience, but I learned that I really enjoyed the variety. This also improved my resilience, fitness and confidence. I feel that I could successfully prepare with Runcoach for any racing distance.