We are all guilty of being our own worst critics. But when it comes to your running that needs to stop. If you’re getting out the front door and running, regardless of your pace or distance you are doing great. Could you do better? Probably, but not if you keep putting negative thoughts in your head.

As a running coach that encourages my runners to offer feedback on every single run they do, I’ve heard so many negative comments from individuals.

The normal criticism we direct towards are ourselves is based around pace. We compare ourselves with others. 90% of the time those we choose to compare ourselves happen to be faster than us. Why do we do that? We could just as easily compare ourselves with runners that we are faster than.

I’ve heard the phrase “I’m not a real runner” hundreds of times and it’s just nonsense and will only lead to a drop in confidence.

Social media and Strava obviously play a big part in this self perception as most people will only post their achievements, personal bests of really big sessions. That’s fine, I’m not saying they’re wrong to do that, but we need to have that understanding and not use it to compare with our pace on our latest 60 minute easy run.

There’s no real reason to judge yourself. Let others do that, especially if you work with a coach. I’ll be honest to my runners and if they have a poor session I’ll try and look to what the cause was and how we can prevent that happening again.

If it just comes down to lack of effort, then I will try and provide motivation to encourage that runner to reach the levels they need to in order to achieve their goals.

None of us are elite athletes, at least none of the runners I’ve worked with to date, so some days, after a long shift or a poor nights sleep, our running might not be to the best of our ability. But that’s ok. We move on, try to learn from what did go wrong and look forward to the next run.

It’s important to always take the positives from a run as well. If you don’t hit your target paces then it’s not a failure, unless you quit half way through for no reason, then perhaps it’s a case of a stern talking to.

It’s really important that as runners we try and compliment ourselves for the efforts we put in. Running isn’t easy. So the fact we choose this as our hobby is something to be proud of straight away.

A journal can certainly help. I write my own each day and the goal is to be proud of the work I’ve put in and the person I was during those 24 hours. Will that always lead to success or good days, of course not, but if I’ve tried hard then I have to be pleased with myself.