Run 1000 Miles 2019 | 253 Miles Down

It’s the first day of April, which means I’ve been working toward my goal of running 1000 miles in 2019 for exactly three months. It’s going well, despite a not-so-promising start.

My first run of the year was a 7-mile slog around Rutland Water on New Year’s Day. It came after a long break away from my trainers and turned out to be really painful. The soreness lasted for days. Not the best start for a running challenge! I finished the first week with a little less than 11 miles (9 miles short of my 20 miles goal) hoping it was not a sign of things to come.

Thankfully, it wasn’t. I finished January with a total of 91 miles.

I had a couple slow weeks since then – the dreary weather and irregular work hours were not particularly helpful – but I managed to stay on track. I’m finally settling into some kind of routine. I try to run the required 20 miles during the week, leaving the weekends for long trail runs and bonus miles.

I’m certainly learning a lot about motivation, discipline and the art of prioritising! I’m also learning a lot about nutrition and recovery. I’ve made some minor changes to my diet and I’m experimenting with food on longer runs. I can’t stand gels (the texture makes me gag) and you can only drink so much Lucozade/Tailwind, so I started making my own snacks. On the recovery side of things, foam rollers and cold showers are my new best friends. Yoga is also very useful to stretch out stiff and tired muscles.

My biggest challenge these days is boredom. Most of my runs are on the same two or three routes – it gets old pretty quickly! Hopefully the arrival of spring will bring more trail runs.

253 miles down, 747 to go!