{"id":372138,"date":"2026-04-03T01:09:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T01:09:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/372138\/"},"modified":"2026-04-03T01:09:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T01:09:12","slug":"at-40-i-went-from-zero-exercise-to-a-sub-20-minute-5k-in-just-18-months-heres-how-i-train","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/372138\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018At 40, I went from zero exercise to a sub-20-minute 5K in just 18 months. Here\u2019s how I train\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Many runners spend their whole life trying to break the 20-minute mark for 5K<\/a>. P Burton-Morgan, now 42, achieved it in just 18 months as \u2018a middle-aged mum who\u2019d done no exercise for two decades\u2019. Keen to hear more, RW sat down with the runner and poet to talk running clubs, recovery and rhyme…<\/p>\n

\u2018After a decade of no exercise, besides child-rearing and reaching for cake, I started running by myself, mainly for my mental health. For my first run, I literally just put on a pair of trainers that had sat in the back of the cupboard for, honestly, 20 years. I mean, 20 years ago they were good trainers, but they\u2019d become completely degraded by this point. I just put them on, did no stretching and ran off down the lane and into the woods, probably way too first<\/a>. After 10 minutes, I thought, \u201cWell, I can\u2019t keep this up.\u201d So I started walking for a bit, then running for a bit. I suppose, without knowing it, I was doing the whole run-walk<\/a> thing. <\/p>\n

\u2018Then I did a parkrun<\/a> in about 24 minutes and everyone went, \u201cOh, you\u2019re quite fast, actually.\u201d I looked around and thought, \u201cWho are those cool people in the red vests?\u201d My friend told me they were from Frome Running Club. That was last July and, by that point, I knew I was going to make my next poetry show<\/a> about running. So I joined the running club mainly for content for the show, but soon I was entering races and scoring points for the club. Then I got a charity place in the London Marathon, running for the NSPCC<\/a>, which I\u2019m now hoping to run in 3:15. <\/p>\n

Related Story<\/p>\n

\u2018I\u2019ve managed to get my 5K time down to 19:29<\/a> and have also run a 1:31 half marathon. I\u2019m now running five times a week. The biggest benefit of joining a run club is that I\u2019ve learned about different types of running \u2013 like interval sessions and tempo running \u2013 which are now part of my weekly schedule.<\/p>\n

\u2018My brother, who also runs, got me a Garmin watch<\/a> for Christmas. It\u2019s so helpful as all the sessions get downloaded to the watch with all the specific paces. My watch keeps saying, \u201cYou\u2019re smashing your pace targets, shall we up them?\u201d It thinks I can run a 3:02 marathon, but there\u2019s no way I\u2019m going for that on my debut. <\/p>\n

\u2018If there\u2019s any secret to how fast I\u2019ve progressed, it\u2019s that I put more energy into my recovery than anyone I know. I do 20 minutes to 30 minutes of yoga<\/a> seven days a week, I do my strength and conditioning<\/a> three times a week, and my nutrition is really on point now. So that\u2019s all the boring things. And then my secret thing is I listen to a self-healing meditation every night. It says things like, \u201cYou have the power to heal; you\u2019re strong\u201d, etc. Perhaps it\u2019s just the power of story and placebo \u2013 but it works. <\/p>\n

\u2018Running has formed the content of my Running Commentary<\/a> show, which is touring round the UK from May to July. Getting the tour together was actually fairly simple as I\u2019ve been working with venues for the past two decades as a writer and director. And there was a real demand. I think that\u2019s because running is so popular and feels so accessible to so many people. But also, I hope, it\u2019s because I\u2019m a single mum, I\u2019m going through a divorce, I\u2019ve got fast and had some minor successes, and there have been some flirty, silly dating moments along the way. So there\u2019s something in it for everyone.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018I\u2019m not a stand-up comic, but I absolutely am happy to take the mickey out of myself. And so my Running Commentary<\/a> show is, hopefully, a bit funny. Some of it\u2019s a little bit sexy, too, and lots of it\u2019s just very silly. For instance, I talk about when I went on a run and I pissed myself. Or the fact that, even though I have got really toned from doing all the running, I\u2019m never going to have a six-pack because of my mummy tummy. I\u2019m very real about bodies, and the whole show is very honest \u2013 perhaps too much so at times! It\u2019s so easy for mums to go through divorces and for everything to sort of fall apart. And I suppose, ultimately, it\u2019s a story of me putting my life back together \u2013 with the help of running.\u2019<\/p>\n

P Burton-Morgan\u2019s show Running Commentary is on tour from May to July. Book your tickets here: mettatheatre.co.uk\/running-commentary<\/a><\/p>\n

Related Story<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Many runners spend their whole life trying to break the 20-minute mark for 5K. P Burton-Morgan, now 42,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":372139,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[45012,178769,637,589,163,178768,85,46,636,178767,140334],"class_list":{"0":"post-372138","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fitness","8":"tag-content-type-advice","9":"tag-contentid-ebd4633a-1b34-4924-ae28-873a8af61b13","10":"tag-displaytype-standard-article","11":"tag-fitness","12":"tag-health","13":"tag-i-went-from-no-exercise-to-a-sub-20-minute-5k-in-just-18-months-heres-how-i-train","14":"tag-il","15":"tag-israel","16":"tag-locale-gb","17":"tag-shorttitle-at-40","18":"tag-subsection-motivation"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372138","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=372138"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372138\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/372139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=372138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=372138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=372138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}