I guess this shouldn’t be surprising. I’m training for long-distance running, so every couple of weeks there’s going to be some progression in duration and distance. But this week feels different. It feels easier. And that feels earned.

I went for three runs: 30 / 30 / 40 minutes — longest overall distance and duration so far! Five weeks ago, I was doing only 20–25 minutes. Hitting 40 minutes now, and doing it comfortably, felt genuinely good 🎉

On paper, the jump from the previous week’s 25 / 30 / 35 doesn’t look dramatic. But I’m starting to see that this isn’t about dramatic jumps. It’s about stacking small improvements and letting consistency do the work.

Plan for next week: more of the same. Keep the 30 / 30 / 40 and check that the endurance still feels solid.

Coach keeps emphasizing that these runs should feel easy — like I could keep going. The goal isn’t to exhaust myself. It’s to slowly expand what “comfortable” means.

That said, I'm slightly worried that I underplayed my actual endurance and that the starting point was set too low. The pace I’m running is 4.5 mph — about 13:20 per mile. According to some stats I found, that’s apparently a half-marathon pace for someone in their 60s 😬

We didn’t do any formal “calibration” at the beginning. I just said I casually run 20 minutes twice a week and we built from there. In hindsight, maybe a baseline test would have been useful.

I asked coach about it and it said:

Your easy pace is not your race pace.

If you had to run 60 minutes right now at 4.5 mph, could you?

(Probably yes.)

If you can probably run 60 minutes at 4.5 mph right now, that means:

• Your aerobic base is solidly developing
• You’re nowhere near your ceiling
• You’re training conservatively (which is correct)

Here’s the key perspective shift:

• You are not training to be fast in February.
• You are training to be durable in May.

Okay then.

One last thing — I set up a simple site where all the posts live in one place 🚀

​https://mattsrunningjourney.com/​