I recently took a bit of time to extract all my activity data from Strava, in addition to a small program that handles future activities going forward. This move was mostly for peace of mind, although admittedly some alarm bells were going off with the recent Strava vs Garmin episode. Beyond this, it offered a great opportunity to analyse my data given I’ve just crossed 3 years of running. This here is exactly that. A look back, and dive into my running journey (so far).

Beginnings

Running wasn’t something I thought I’d ever enjoy. I had been an avid gym goer since school, considered myself in decent shape, and I was. Put on the treadmill or the road however and it was a different story. Weight fitness != cardio fitness.

I couldn’t say where the desire to run came from exactly. In Covid times, I had taken a few trips around the block in the name of maintaining some level of fitness although largely just opportunities to see a change of scenery (thanks Covid!).

September 12 2022 (at 7:15AM no less) however marked my first recorded run on Strava. 22 minutes long and 2.3 miles covered, making it an average pace of 9:32 / mile. Not half bad at all by the numbers, but as mentioned, the heart and lungs would tell a different tale.

None the less I stuck with it, averaging 3-4 runs a week through to the end of 2022. My first 10K came in November, with 3 more to follow before the year was out.

Dialling it up

Whilst I said I wasn’t quite sure where the desire to start running came from, I’m probably even less sure why I chose to target a marathon, with less than a year under my belt of training.

With a succession of 10K’s I was certainly motivated. And with a short period of deliberation across Christmas and New Year, I set my mind on completing a marathon. Entering the new year my mind was set on Worcester Marathon. A low key affair, with a few hundred runners at most but with the swiftly approaching date of May 21st. Whilst I said I wasn’t quite sure where the desire to start running came from, I had clearly caught the bug. I relish a challenge and with less than a year of training under my belt, less than 6 months even this would certainly be one. I knew there was a lot of work to be done, and went with Hal Higdon’s 18 week Novice 1 marathon training plan. This gave me a path to follow from the start of the year right through to race day. I had a lot of endurance to build but just looking back at the weekend runs from that period (The weekend is typically when you do your ‘long run’ for the week, gradually increasing time on the legs) it is satisfying to see mileage trend upwards.

These long runs were gratifying, knowing that every weekend was a new PR in terms of distance. Whilst the paces aren’t anything crazy, I was consistent through this period. It wasn’t however all plain sailing. I have a period of dealing with incredible soreness on the inside of my knees. Clearly the effects of the overall mileage and causing doubts about whether I’d be lining up at the start of race day but my managing pace, nutrition, and recovery I was able to push through. My highest mileage week was roughly 4 weeks from race day (before tapering), a total of 42.5 miles coming off 4 previous weeks of 30+ miles.

My main goal come race day was just to finish. With my longest training run being 21 miles there was still a decent chunk to tack on. I did however in my head desire to go sub 4 hours. Given the timescale this was ambitious. I would be at 8 months of training come race day and although I hoped to do some speed related workouts in my training blocks these were written off due to the knee soreness that was affecting me. This would require an average pace of 9:09 / mile across the 26 miles. Faster than essentially all of my training to date…

Somehow I managed this. The pace felt incredibly quick to begin with and there was some hesitation and if I’d be able to sustain this overall. Remarkably the splits were very consistent and I pulled off a short buffer early on which paid off later as I began to lose a bit of time in the later stages.

‘Marathon shape’ is no joke, and it is reasonable to run up to 15 miles without any soreness (crazy!) in training and on race day. The true race doesn’t start until that point, miles 16 - 22 were difficult, and 22 onwards excruciating. My decision to run a ‘low key’ marathon as a first, avoiding the crowds maybe didn’t pay off in this sense. The course was largely country lanes around Worcester so crowd support was virtually non-existent and makes the mental challenge that much more difficult. Yet I hadn’t come through 18 weeks of training to give up and pushed through for an official finish of 3:56:31.

I’ve spent a lot of time talking about this marathon but it really is my greatest running achievement to date. I haven’t took on the challenge again since, although certainly will be hopefully in the near future. It really is a life experience that I recommend to everyone and will teach you a lot about your body and mind.

Beyond the marathon

I took some much needed time off running post marathon but 2023 continued to be a big year in training. It is my largest overall mileage by year:

• 2023: 1,170 mi
• 2025: 925 mi (a few more to come before the end of year)
• 2024: 791 mi
• 2022: 209 mi (September onwards)

There is actually a reason for that. Unfortunately a lot of time since the marathon has been plagued with various injuries. Ironic since I haven’t trained for a marathon since although I have been just as keen, opting for mileage where I haven’t really needed it. There has been a lot of takeaways from this period but certainly one of them is listen to your body. Overtraining is no joke and it will sneak up on you such that by the time you decide to reign it back in for a period the damage is already done.

Visualising all the weeks in my running journey reveals the reality of this. There is a large empty block shortly after my marathon whilst I did some traveling. The other empty blocks could be assumed to be holidays also, however actually these are recovery periods where running has not really been feasible.

Improvements

It hasn’t all been doom and gloom since the marathon however. As mentioned, I’ve taken a lot of learnings away from the miles I’ve covered since. I’ve seen my overall average pace on an annual basis drop. A clear indicator of improving fitness.

This is also apparent in the races I’ve done since then. My first race Half Marathon (HM) was 1:56:50, during my marathon training. My recent attempt at the Oxford HM was 1:33:48. Participating in Oxford 10K in May was a result of 47:12 whilst during the HM I did a 43:34.

My plan for 2026 is to give more focus to these distances, avoiding the higher mileage without proper thought to keep injuries at bay and instead just focus on getting faster. I’ve loved every minute of running so far, even with the hardship, and if there is a takeaway it is that fitness doesn’t come easy, everyone has their own journey and that it is an rewarding experience.

I have plenty of other visualisations and data points of interest that I could write a book just on these years. I don’t own a smartwatch or heart rate monitor, opting to run largely on feel so am slightly gutted at not having the accompanying vitals to go along with this although perhaps will for a future addition. For now though I’ll leave you with a few overall interesting stats up to this point:

• Total distance to date: 3097 mi
• Time spent running: 520 hours ( ~21 days)
• Total number of recorded runs: 616
• Overall average pace: 9:41 / mile
• Most elevation gained in a single week: 460 meters
• Average run duration: 51 minutes