[appletango]

This is a great topic and I have been wondering the same so glad you posted it.

For me I always feel great after going. I love trying to be my previous days time. I find 3 times a week too little as well and what I have decided is to walk/bike on the days off at a brisk but not too brisk pace as to wear myself out. I find that if I skip a day (ie take the day off) I have a MUCH harder time getting motivated to get out the next day. If I do something on the off days I get on a roll and don't want to stop.

This seems to be working for me. I experience no pain other then expected. No bone pain I guess but the anticipated muscle burn is there. The most ironic thing in all of this is I have since I was quite young had some variation of Patello-Femoral Syndrome http://www.spinalhealth.net/inj-pat.html. I have the same symptoms as described and have done everything to get rid of it. This is supposed to be agrivated by running but it seems that now that I'm building up my quads again however since I have a severe over pronation and flat feet, I think the money I invested in good running shoes is paying off. Before I had a 'Theatre Sign' in that I had to have an asile seat at the movies or on planes and it would kill me to sit in a car for longer then a half an hour. However now that I have take off some weight, started building up some muscle around there and gotten some shoes that support my feet properly this thing is all but gone away.

I have a 3.8 km loop that I do if I walk or do the program. Week 4 is going to make me go beyond this loop but I'll just start the loop again from my front door as I like to time my progress around this loop; I have been doing it since I started. I'm down from 36 minutes walking to 27 1/2 minutes on C25K Week 3. On my days that I just walk I'm still under 30 minutes which tells me that my run is not all that fast however I'm still 270 lbs but as I drop the pace picks up.

Last week was supposed to be my week three. I only got out one due to weather and a cold/flu. I got out twice on teh weekend so I should be square with week 3 but I'm going to do it once more and then I'm onto week 4. Unless it is pouring rain from now on I can't use weather as an excuse at 6 am when I go out as it is easy for me to stay in bed if it is snowing/raining but then I feel guilty and crappy all day. It took me 30 minutes to convince me to go this morning but I went despite snow wind and about -10 C with windchill.

Maybe when I move into week 4 I will find I need the days off but so far my best bet is to try to go every day and usually other circumstances end up providing/necessitating a day or two off a week.