Running Every Day in May
What 31 days of the same 5km taught me about everyday adventure.
I’m not entirely sure why I thought it would be a good idea to set myself the challenge of running 5km every single day throughout May. For one thing, I hadn’t run a single 5k this year, so why did I think doing 31 of them in a row was a good idea? I had thought to myself, if I’m going to write about everyday adventures, I figured I should actually have one… every day.
I’m generally not a very organised person. I’ve been meaning to get back into running for the past couple of years, but each week would slip by and before I knew it, it was the weekend again.
They say you shouldn’t try and create new hobbies by going to the extreme, but to be honest it’s the only way I know how to. It’s got to be all in or nothing. So I thought a month-long challenge would be a good idea for May. The days were longer, giving me plenty of time before or after work, and the trails around my house had dried out in the spring heatwaves we’ve been having. (Seriously, how cruel is it realising that living in the countryside doesn’t mean year-round trail runs, but instead lots of ankle-deep mud!)
I wanted to get a couple of things out of this challenge. Firstly, to get a bit fitter again. I’d taken a look back at my very first ever blog post five years ago. I’d run three half marathons over a bank holiday weekend to explore 64 grid squares of my local OS map. It was one of many adventures where my ability to plod along at a steady jogging pace all day got me to different places to explore. I wanted to get that freedom back.
Secondly, it was a perfect way of having an adventure everyday. Seeing as that’s the whole premise of my newsletter, I will admit to being a bit of a con… I sometimes find myself too busy or too distracted to remember to go and do something outdoors each day. Trying to claim my five-minute walk to the shop for lunch as an outdoor adventure is a bit of a stretch. Running would get me a good 30+ minutes outdoors every day, regardless of what the weather might be.
As it was a challenge, I wanted to set a few rules without being too harsh on myself. The main things I wanted to keep in mind:
Whilst I was trying to get fitter, it was important not to get injured, so easy days of walking and running were fine. I didn’t care how long the runs took.
It needed to be local. A couple of runs at local parks were fine, but most of the runs should start and finish from my front door.
The first day of the challenge fell on a workday, so I left it until the evening to complete. A quiet Friday evening, the sun settling on the horizon behind me, with the sky painted a deep amber. I’d plotted a loop from my house which was pretty much entirely trails and would allow my dog Betty to come with me and run off the lead.
I found the running hard to get into. It took ages for my legs to warm up and within the first minute my lungs were burning. It did eventually subside, and with some well-timed walks mixed in I managed to get myself across the recently ploughed fields surrounding the village, up onto the hill near the quarry and back down to my house via a permissive path alongside the nature reserve.
It was a route that would become very familiar across the month, with me opting for it most days. Despite needing to run uphill for half of it and also descending a flight of 50 steps to get back down the hill, it was probably the most picturesque run I had available. A mix of hillsides, meadows, bridleways, farmland, a stretch alongside a stream, and a lovely duck pond just near the finish.
Like most multi-day adventures, things started to unravel a little after a few days. My legs were feeling heavy and I was tired. Things would be okay once I was out running, but it became an effort to find the motivation to put the running shoes on each day. This is where making it a daily challenge mattered. One day off would have easily turned into several, and then none at all.
It’s something I’ve experienced multiple times on some of the bigger adventures I’ve been on, whether that’s a two-week hike or a cross-continent bikepacking trip. I’ve never really been fit enough for those challenges when I started, but after a couple of days, if you could push through the tiredness, things would get easier and the fitness would build as you went along.
So that’s exactly what I did over the next couple of weeks. Each day, whether in pouring rain or a blistering heatwave, I made sure to go out. Some days felt blissful and the running came easy. On those days I could feel the increase in my fitness. On other days it was a stretch, and that’s when I dropped the pace and did a bit more walking.
As I repeatedly ran the same trails, usually cycling through three variations of the route, I began to notice how the nature around the village was changing. The trails had been dry and baked hard under the sun when I had first started, left all bumpy from the hooves of horses from the local stable who often rode these routes through the winter when it was thick mud. The sides of the trails were turning green, with daisies and dandelions scattered along the path.
As we moved through the month, the cycle of heavy rain and intense heat forced the foliage to grow rapidly. What had once been dusty trails was now lush with grass, curtained by waist-high shrubs, nettles, and wildflowers. The meadow became a blanket of buttercups, glowing on the days when the sun was shining. With each passing day, the route felt different, almost like it was growing alongside my fitness as the month passed.
Things were pretty steady through the middle of the month before it began to slow down towards the end. Work was busier than it had ever been and we were in the middle of a heatwave that made running particularly unenjoyable for most parts of the day. Most of my runs in that final week were either first thing in the morning or late in the evening, and I could feel it when I was out there. I kept plodding along though, determined to see out the challenge. It would be wasted effort to stop now.
The final day of the challenge fell on a Sunday, and I waited until the evening to complete my run. The sun was out and I wanted to wait for it to set so I could run under the beautiful skies of dusk.
It’s funny how we find comfort in routine. I’d run mostly the same trail for 30 days, and each day I had run it in the same direction. I thought I’d mix it up for the final day. I ran through the nature reserve, tackled the steps up onto the hillside, then along the ridge and all the way to Croft Hill, a standalone hill with a 360° view of the surrounding countryside and a popular spot to watch the sunset.
I’d avoided running up here throughout the month because it was a slog on the legs, but it felt worth the effort on the final day. I reached the summit and the trig point just as the sun was about to touch the horizon, the last of the light glowing across the field below—the final mile of my challenge.
It felt like a fitting way to finish.
All in all, the challenge had been a success. I managed all 31 days and spent far more time outdoors than I otherwise would have. It was fitting that it fell during the busiest time of year at work. It proved I could still make time for it, and actually it was exactly what I needed.
The biggest thing I learnt from the month was that no matter how unmotivated or tired I felt when getting ready, it all went away the moment I was running down those trails. The tired legs and burning lungs felt worth it. That hour each day became a kind of relief, from work, from life, from doing nothing. Sometimes getting up and just going out there is enough.
It doesn’t need to be a 5k run or a long hike. Just getting out the door for 10 minutes to sit in the park and watch the birds can be enough and you won’t regret it once your out there.
I’ll try to remember that every time I tell myself, “not today, maybe next week.”
Here’s some stats from the running challenge
To keep a log of my runs across the month I tracked each run on my Fitbit and also weighed myself daily. I did after all want to use it as an opportunity to get a bit fitter.
Here’s an overview of of the challenge:
Total running days: 31
Total distance: 159.4 km
Day one 5K time: 40m 50s
Fastest 5k time: 36m 40s (Day 30!)
Total weight lost: 8.7 kg
My Running Everyday in May challenge is a perfect example of how we don’t need to chase big peaks and epic challenges to live an adventurously life. Adventure can be on our doorstep if we change the way we look at it.
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