Why Returning Runners should use a Beginners Program
You used to run. You'd go out and practically prance for three, five, or ten miles at a time and it felt great! It was easy and you were in great shape.
This is what you feel like
Fast forward and you took a break from running for whatever reason, an injury, lingering sickness, or you just didn't have time. You didn't lace up for six months, maybe even a year or five (or ten or twenty)!
Now you want to get back into it because let's face it, running is awesome. However, when you go out for that initial two or three mile jaunt (because you're still in decent shape) its really tough. You can easily run for five minutes and then you're breath starts to get ragged and your calves and hamstrings are ON FIRE. Running sucks! Then you go home and you have no desire to run again because its just not what it used to be.
This is how you feel after
This is a really common scenario. Once you stop running for any real amount of time (longer than three to six months) you're going to get out of shape really quickly unless something has replaced running for you. Typically you'll gain a bit of weight, be less active, and your general endurance is going to suffer.
The good news is, endurance is a surprisingly easy thing to train! You'll find it comes back quickly and you'll be back to your original status in no time at all.
However, there's no point in rushing things when getting (back) into shape. Start slow, enjoy your runs, and really assess your fitness levels. The benefit of these beginner C25k type programs is that, for the average person, its really hard to hurt yourself. They intentionally start of easy and steadily ramp up your mileage and intensity until you've built up an okay running base.
My personal method of choice has been the 10k Runner app. It's essentially a Couch to 10k program set over fourteen weeks. In theory, after doing the three-ish month program, I'll be able to run for an hour (or about six miles).
10k Runner
Once that base is built I can start playing with my runs more and do more variation and races and all that fun stuff.
You can find the app here