Monitor your training

Whatever your motivations for running it's good to have a target. If you know what you want to achieve and when you want to achieve it, you will be able to plan your training towards that goal and stay focused. As part of your programme you need to put in some milestones so that you can keep track of your progress. This could be by planning in some smaller races to take part in or perhaps by joining in at your local parkrun or it could be by timing some of your training runs and relating your heart rate to them. To get started it would be worth investing in a stop watch or a heart rate monitor.