I’ve spent most of my life loathing the idea of running. Prior to 2020 it was difficult for me to imagine much worse than being told I need to run anywhere. Like a lot of people, my negative associations with running stem back to a knuckle dragging sports teachers in secondary school coupled with being an overweight kid. While I have managed to escape those teachers, the weight and associated body image continue to plague me until this day.
At the start of 2020, I made the decision I wanted to push outside my comfort zone and attempt to get into running. This wasn’t a sudden decision, I had been listening to David Goggins and Rich Roll’s audiobooks over the last few months and I was inspired that I too could go from overweight to cool ultra runner. Obviously I knew I wouldn’t go from nothing to suddenly running hundreds of miles without stopping — I hadn’t run properly in about 15 years at this point.
I am one of those people that if I have to follow a rigid plan and commit to it, I will inevitably miss a day, get disheartened and quit. Therefore I made the decision that I want to have a relaxed approach without following any specific plan to start with. Just go out there and run, see how it goes and accept it’s going to be really uncomfortable for a long time.
I decided right at the very start I wanted to be able to track my progress over time, so I decided to set up Strava. I am the type of person that likes to look at and work with data. I inherently find data interest and seeing changes over time scratches an itch — Get healthier and nerd out on running data seems like a good time to me.
For the first few months, I didn’t take running super seriously, I would just go out for a run here and there whenever I felt like it. Roughly aiming for once or twice a week. Like the rest of the world, COVID struck and life changed overnight as I spent 7 weeks deployed to The Nightingale in London.
At the start of May as life started to calm down post-Nightingale, I decided I wanted to try and make a little more progress with my running. I made a very loose goal of running 365 miles by the end of the year. Given at this point we were almost half way through the year and I had run a grand total of about 30 miles I calculated I would need to run about 12 miles a week to hit the goal of 365 by the end of the year.
I managed to do 10 runs in May, with all of my PR’s coming at the start of the month. I think the first 3 runs of May were my fastest and went furthest, with the rest of the month not getting anywhere near it. I’m not sure why this is yet, but I’m sure there’s an underlying reason if I dig into the data a little more. Perhaps I am not pushing myself as hard as I could be.
26.1 miles is just about the length of a marathon, which a friend pointed out to me. I thought this was a cool little fact which gave me a newfound appreciation for just how long a marathon is (and that it would seemingly take me 6.5 hours to complete?!).
My goal at this point is to increase my mileage that I am continuously running. At the moment I am running about 1.5–2 miles before I need to slow down and walk. What this seems to mean is that I am still running too fast for my body to continuously hold that pace. I honestly don’t think I could run any slower than I currently am…
One thing I am very conscious of is that it seems like it’s really easy for people to overextend themselves and get injured. I am still learning what is discomfort and what is pain I should be concerned about. I am finding on most of my runs I will have some pain in the arch of my left foot or in my left knee. No such pain on the right side, which leads me to think I have a muscle imbalance or weakness on the left side.
It has been quite humbling so far to realise just how bad I am at running compared to other people, and just how dreadfully slow I am. However I try and take no notice of the speeds other people are moving at. My only focus is my own speed, and improving that over time.
Tom
