My Running Diary (April 2021)

As I mentioned in my latest running blog post, I've decided to create a running diary each month. One; to keep myself accountable and two; to show my progress in another way apart from on my running app or my social media. (Side note: when I mention "we", I'll be talking about my boyfriend and I, we almost always run together.)

Saturday 3rd April

Distance: 2K
Time: 16:30
Average Pace (per km): 8:14

When I say this was a zero pressure run, it really was. We had no expectations of how far or how long we would run for, because we know that we're trying to get back into a routine again and instead of setting ourselves up for something that's not achievable, we would pull back on everything. We did 2K up and down our local industrial estate, and while it's not a pretty park by any means, it's nice and quiet and you don't have to dodge many people (if any). Our average pace was around 8:14 per kilometre which is an improvement from what we were doing in January. Overall, we were quite happy with this run, despite it not being a long run, but as I said, this was a zero pressure run and that's what it was.

Sunday 11th April

Distance: 3K
Time: 25:12
Average Pace (per km): 8:23

We've taken to running around our local park at the minute so this was the first time I had done it, and I was getting used to where each point was. One lap is around 0.9K (which I find very frustrating, ha!) so each 1K mark was a break for us to catch our breath and then get back on track. I was really happy with this run because we hadn't ran this distance since the middle of January, and that was 4K, I didn't struggle as much either. Our average was around 8:23 per kilometre, so slightly slower than our previous run, but this one was longer so we gave ourselves some extra breathing room around this one.

Sunday 25th April

Distance: 3.24K (or 2 miles)
Time: 28:15
Average Pace (per km): 8:42

We did another run around our local park and we managed to bump it up to two miles. We took a break at around every 1K like we normally do but I can already tell that I have much more stamina than I did at the beginning of the month. I'm not feeling as tired after the first kilometre, which is why we felt comfortable enough to go past the 3K mark to hit the two mile mark. Our average was around 8:42 per kilometre, which compared to the last run, is slower. However, we went further this time, so we feel like that's fairly balanced.

Tuesday 27th April

Distance: 1.63K (or 1 mile)
Time: 14:01
Average Pace (per km): 8:33

Another jaunt around the local park but this time it was for one mile. I was still feeling quite stiff from our previous run (and I tend to walk too fast up the hill to the park so naturally, my calves were stiff from that) and I was happy to get a mile under our belts. With our average pace of 8:33 per kilometre, that is slower than our 3K run on 11th April, but we had ran two days before so we expected to be slower because of this.

How do I feel about my running overall this month?

Genuinely, I'm really happy with my running this month because we went in with zero expectations and we managed to see progress from the get go. Even though I have kept track of timings and distance, they don't affect me mentally right now; I'm not obsessing over the numbers like I used to, and that's a win for me.

What I would like to focus on next month?

For next month, the only thing I would like to focus on is running more, especially during the week. You can see from my progress that most of my running is at a weekend which is still great, don't get me wrong; but I feel like it's just as important to build up my progress during the week whether that's the morning or in the evening. As the evenings are getting longer, I feel much safer being able to run at night so that's not an issue but one of the main reasons is tiredness. I am going to try and push through the "after work" tiredness and see what I can do (but sometimes I just need to nap, sorry!)

• • •

This diary has really made me take stock of exactly how I feel before, during and after a run, which is something I think a lot of people forget about. There could be so many reasons you had a bad run, and there could be so many reasons why your next one was fantastic. It's just about taking a minute to take it all in (as cliché as that sounds). Thank you as always for reading.

Have a wonderful day!