I took a long weekend last week to give myself a little headspace, but also to give myself an opportunity to drive out and run somewhere different. I am glad I did.

I ran around a country park, around a beautiful lake and through the woods.  The change of scenery was really refreshing after months of lockdown monotony. I normally just run around my village, as I took up running during lockdown it has been quite a limiting factor on where I can run, especially as I continue to work full time from home.

Taking in the scenery and views as I was running brought me great joy, and it was also just what I needed.  I ran eight miles on that day – the sun was shining, and I do honestly feel the change of scenery really helped push me to achieve that distance.

Due to my recent shoulder injury I have very much been focusing on my running the last few weeks, and I am currently trying to boost my comfortable running distance to 6.3 miles, or 10 km. I have been running this distance semi regularly, but I am now making this my main running distance to aim for.  My goal is to be able to run 10KM in one hour by the end of this year.  I had previously been running a 5.1 mile circuit and measuring my times based on that, but now I am aiming to move things up a little by regularly timing myself on the 10 km distance.

I only returned to running on 31 October 2020 after a long break, so I’d never planned to go all out with running from the beginning. I’m taking a slow and steady  approach to progression, and I do believe this has helped motivate me.  I set my goals on 27 December last year, and I am pleased to be able to see progress towards my goal.

I’ll keep on pushing on with this.  I have found it much better for my wellbeing to break down the goal.  I set the headline aim, and then actually spent time writing out a few milestones to help me achieve this.

I have a second running goal, to run a 13.1 mile distance in one single run by the end of the year. Aiming for a half marathon is a little further off for me, but any progression with my first goal is good progress towards achieving this.  So far, my longest distance running is 10.2 miles.  That was a few weeks ago, so I was very happy with an eight mile distance this week.

What ever your goals are in life or 2021, stick at it.  Spend some time developing the idea, with milestones and the components to achieve it.  It can really help your progression to that goal.