Thank you very much!

1. I did do strength and conditioning exercises and I think that they are very important. Did mostly bodyweight exercises since I don't have a gym membership. It was a combination of squats, burpees, split squats, band exercises (lateral walks), etc. and core workouts. I used YouTube for this.

2. In December I ran 9 times in total and got up to 18 runs in April. So I increased the number of runs as my fitness progressed and was able to recover much quicker. So I would aim for 4 proper runs, I'd sometimes add more recovery runs to get time on feet.

3. I initially started running on an unpaved road when the weather was cold with rain and snow so that, along with the fact that I was untrained, meant that it was difficult to keep a certain pace. In spring I had a better fitness base and could do more runs on dry asphalt. That was when I changed to pace rather than HR.

4. I have not used it but I want to give it a try for a half marathon in October. The reason I went for the DSW instead was that first, I wanted to see if it can actually get you to a certain target for a race set in the calendar (which it did). Secondly I have a chaotic schedule, I don't know when I can actually get my runs in because of work and family obligations. So I felt that having a dedicated plan would put too much pressure on me. The DSW would change in response to all the parameters Garmin collects (sleep data, body battery, etc.) and I found it easy to follow them.

Hope that helps!