How I did it: I trained twice a week when I could. I started in November training with my partner for a race he was doing and then continued training after I signed up for my 5k in June.

Lots of the girls from work were training for the same race so that helped keep me motivated.  I didn't train in the last 5 weeks due to some family problems but still wanted to run a whole race.

I set myself a goal of running the whole race without stopping.  When it got to race day I had never run 5k in total in one go, my longest run was about 3.5k.  When it came to the race I ran most of the way with one of my colleagues and when I wanted to stop she kept motivating me.  When I turned the corner for the last 500m I felt amazing with everyone cheering and Isprinted over the line to finish in a time of 33 minutes flat, a totally respectable 5k time!

It was a charity race and our team raised over £700.

Lessons & tips: I trained using walk-to-run podcasts on my ipod and tracked my runs to keep me motivated.

Find a race to sign up for and just do it.  Also take a friend to motivate you!

Resources: When I was training I used the podcasts on coolrunnings.com but you can get a similar one on the UK NHS website which my friend uses and says are great.

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Jun 06, 2011, 03:29AM PDT | 0 comments | 5 cheers