You can find cheap running shoes if you shop around, especially in the sales, or if your budget is tight, you can pick up some great second-hand pairs on sites such as eBay or on running forums on Facebook. However, investing in a pair of decent running shoes will make a huge difference to your progress. For clothing, an old T-shirt and shorts or leggings will do, at least to start with. One of the many great things about running is how little kit you actually need. Running injuries - When to run and when to stop.Contrary to what some people suggest, you cannot ‘run off’ an injury. If it doesn’t disappear, consult your GP or a physiotherapist if possible. If you’re not sure, try walking for a minute or two to see if the discomfort disappears. Stop running immediately, and take a few days off. If something feels so sore or acute that you have to run with a limp or otherwise alter your stride, then you are probably injured. It's perfectly normal to feel some discomfort and aches when you first start running, as your body gets used to it. Here’s everything you need to know about going from Couch to 5K Is it normal to feel pain when you start running? By the mid-2000s it was rocketing in popularity and since then, he estimates tens of millions of people have benefitted from the programme – even the NHS recommends it. Word began to spread, and communities grew, spreading the word of its benefits and successes. The result was the Couch to 5K plan, which he put online in 1996. He wanted to introduce it more gently to her, so that she could see the rewards and avoid what he called in a BBC interview the 'dreary horrible ramp-up' that he had experienced. It was during this period that he create a plan to help his mum to take up running too. But he persisted, and it started to feel good – ‘physically, mentally and even spiritually’. He wasn't a runner himself at the time, but following a break-up in his early 20s he took it up and found running at first to be ‘punishing and painful’.

The original Couch to 5k training plan was devised by American Josh Clark, back in the mid-1990s.

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