You need more than one-off snapshots of your fitness levels to assess your progress properly. Races and time trials are reasonable guides to how things are developing, but they vary too much to be really useful. Races also rely on maximal effort

progression run means starting out at a slow pace, but finishing at a fast pace. And it can mean the difference between crawling over the finish line and storming through it. Progression runs aren't new. Finland's Paavo Nurmi, who won nine Olympic gold medals

if this doesn't feel right, he'll be treating it as a relaxed long run instead. Generally speaking, Dan's making great progress. A couple of setbacks aside, he now needs to focus on how well the rest of his training has gone to build his confidence

back to normal, I had some great runs. It wasn't that long ago my steady pace used to start with a 9, so it's great to see more miles starting with a 7! I had a 10-mile race last week, but despite progressing well with my positive thinking recently

to running well on race day, so make sure you use some of this in your training and understand how it feels. Meg is looking forwards to her first build-up race: a half-marathon on March 1. This will be a real benchmark of her progress and will also tell us

. I've bought new socks, and I've even got a set of lucky safety pins. I've used the same ones at my last two races and PB-ed both times!Steve says: Rob has continued to make great progress. His performance at the Fleet Half-Marathon couldn't have gone

the good work Helen, we are all very proud of your progress.About HelenHelen says: My two children were my motivation for taking up running – I was tired of finding myself out of breath and flustered running around after them, so decided to do something

have held him back, as they do for so many prospective marathoners. Two bouts of knee problems have slowed his progress and just when that appears to have cleared, he now has a shin problem. This has curtailed the last week’s training and meant

with her progress. Gels have been thoroughly discussed on her thread - people have been sharing their experiences of different brands and how often to use them. So far as Lucy's long-run fuelling strategy is concerned, she's discovered that running a loop

to progress without a blip. He clocked up an impressive 58 miles last week, along with a three minute PB in a 15 mile race. Richard’s pace was just nine seconds per mile outside his half-marathon PB –what a confidence boost!Bagging this impressive PB has given