Set your expectations low

At Strong Women, we’re all about setting big goals and striving to achieve them. We can do hard things! But the key to success is being realistic and that may mean setting the bar low.

Catrin MacDonnell says: “Don’t have high expectations. It’s OK to run for 10 minutes to begin with. Thinking I should be running 10k straightaway put me off! Something is better than nothing.”

Ignore running

“It sounds bizarre but try to think of anything but running itself,” advises Holly Freemann. “If you concentrate on running while you’re out, all you will think about is how hard it is or how long left you have. I’d recommend using the time as a kind of therapy; spend it day dreaming and as time for yourself.”

Try Couch to 5k

Perhaps the most common piece of advice for beginners has been to do a Couch to 5k programme. “I couldn’t run for 10 seconds before getting breathless last year – but Couch to 5k literally turned that around,” says Kimberley Bond. “Having realistic goals, making sure you give yourself plenty of time to achieve them and making sure you take plenty of rest between runs is important too!”

But sometimes, you do need that extra push. “Someone recently said that the hardest bit of couch to 5k is ‘couch to front door’. My tip is to just focus on getting out of the house with your gear on, and see what happens,” Martha Hampson offers. “If you do some running, great. But if not, at least you’ve started the first step of the routine. I try not to have running as my goal at all. It’s just ‘twice a week I’ll leave the house for half an hour while wearing my trainers’.”

Forget about falling in love with running

Of course, not everyone’s going to love running right away and the last thing you need is the pressure to enjoy something. So, if you are struggling to like running, forget about falling in love with it. As one runner told us: “There is so much pressure out there to pretend that if you run, you have to act like you love it. I run but I don’t love running at all. I love how I feel after a run and focusing on that feeling is what motivates me to go.”

Sign up to something

Signing up to ‘low-key events’ really motivated Michelle Wickham in the beginning as it gave her something to aim for.

“I loved the buzz from other runners and the spectators. Also, it made me realise that I wasn’t the only one who wasn’t super speedy. I then grew to (mostly) love running!”

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