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I started taking running serious

In 2020 I ran over 1 750km!
I can’t quite believe it myself as I was barely running before, but my tracked data proves it!

How I started to run in 2020

Beginning of 2020 my best friend asked me if we should try to run the half-marathon in our city. I was doubtful of the challenge and decided to make a test run with ~10km and a suuuuper slow pace. As I somehow survived this first activity I said yes while I was thinking “how hard can it be to run double the distance?"

The initial half-marathon would have taken place in April 2020. Our target was just to finish it, no concrete time goal in mind. But as you may know, due to COVID19 almost all events were cancelled and so was ours.

However, I managed to push through and stayed disciplined - I kept running according to my trainings plan.

Statistics

I started tracking my running activities with a Garmin watch in the middle of February, therefore 5-6 weeks before with about 200km are missing in the following statistics.

• I tracked 169 running activities in 2020 with my watch
• I tracked a total distance of 1 551.35km (+200km from Jan/Feb)
• My max distance was 27.50km in October 2020 and it was also the longest run with 3:00:01 (hours:minutes:seconds)
• The average distance of my tracked runs is 9.18km and the average time is 1:00:49

  

Best half-marathon in 2020

As all races in our area were cancelled I continued my training. I finally attempted my own personal race end of September. On 30th September 2020 I ran the half-marathon distance of 21.1km in a time of 2:03:45.

I’m quite proud about my time (considering the starting pace in Jan 2020) and even managed to achieve a striking negative split on this attempt:
the first 10km I ran with ~6:00 min/km and the second part of the half-marathon with ~5:40 min/km, resulting in the above time and an average pace of 5:52 min/km.

Average running pace

I’m also quite happy - besides keeping the discipline - that my running pace increased lot. I started in January 2020 with a pace slower than 7:30 min/km. Now I am getting close to achieving 6:00 min/km on average.

🏃 Goals for 2021

I still need to think about the running goals for this year in detail. I’d like to keep the habit as I’m now in a position where it makes fun and I don’t need to persuade myself everyday - I just do it.

I’m planning to first work on my speed (e.g. get close to 5:00 min/km pace for 10km distance) and second to make longer runs. Not sure a full marathon will be in reach for this year - but let’s see.