In my year-end post, I talked about how in 2020 I wanted to run for the pure sake of enjoying running. My goal is build a comfortable base again and hopefully stay away from injuries.

Just about half way through the month, I'm happy to report that things have been going well with my running.


New Year's five miles

I'm running two to three times per week, and each run is generally three or four miles. Most of the time, I'm able to run the entire time without walk breaks. That's such a small accomplishment compared to where my running used to be, but right now, I'm really excited about it. It's been a long time since I've been healthy enough to build that kind of endurance.

My runs are slow, and I'm still not running with my Garmin. It's too tempting to look down at the paces on my wrist and try to speed up. I'm not ready to push speed right now. Too many times that's led to injuries.

I did experiment with Strava a few times though because I miss being able to get some basic stats about my runs.



But I've gotten some really wonky results with Strava. The first time I used it, it told me my typical four mile loop was actually 4.48 miles. Then when I used it later in the week for a five mile run, and it told me that was only 4.38 miles.

Even if there are some slight discrepancies between the app and an actual GPS watch, thinking a five mile run is shorter than a four mile run seems kind of weird.

Anyone else ever have something like this happen when they've used Strava?

I've forgotten to start it the last couple of times I've gone out running, so I haven't been able to see how it does on a typical three-mile run. I'm hoping maybe it was just some weird flukey thing, and that it will be better in the future.

So two weeks in to the new year, and I'm happy with the progress I'm making and looking forward to keeping it going.