My brain could always find a reason not to go

Before a run, my brain can come up with a very convincing list of reasons not to go.

• I’m tired.
• It’s cold.
• I’ll go tomorrow.
• I can’t be bothered.
• I’m too slow.
• I’m not really a runner.
• What’s the point?

Then I go.

And quite often, I come home feeling like a completely different person: happier, calmer, clearer, more confident, proud of myself—sometimes absolutely buzzing.

My brain has gone somewhere quieter. The grey, can’t-shake-it feeling has gone with it. I feel more like myself again.

But the next time I think about running, the same voice can come back. It presents a thought as though it’s a fact: You can’t do this. You’re too slow. Running isn’t for people like you.

The thought is not the evidence. The evidence is in the running.

That is the problem I want Mind Your Run to help with.

The name is a play on words

Why call a running app “Mind Your Run”?

First, it means mind your own run.

Your run belongs to you. It doesn’t need to look like somebody else’s. Today’s run doesn’t even need to look like your last one. You might run further, run less, walk more, feel brilliant or find it difficult. None of that makes it less real.

There is no universal pace at which you suddenly qualify as a runner.

But “Mind Your Run” also means paying attention to what is happening in your mind.

Running isn’t only about finding the right plan, buying the right outfit or putting on the perfect playlist. Your mind comes with you. It can talk you out of starting, tell you that you’re failing halfway through, or turn one hard run into “proof” that you were never a runner.

I learnt through therapy that a thought is not the same as a fact. You can acknowledge it, ask whether it’s helpful, look for the actual evidence—and take the next step anyway.

Mind Your Run isn’t about bullying yourself into carrying on. It’s about making the unhelpful voice quieter, running on your own terms and finding your way back to the feeling that keeps you coming back.

I’m not building this as a running coach. I’m building it as me.

I’ve been running for more than ten years, and I still have days when I don’t want to go.

I still go red. I still have difficult runs. I still compare myself sometimes. I still forget how good running can make me feel.

I’m not an elite athlete. I’m not a coach. I’m a woman from the West Midlands who caught the running bug from her dad, has completed two half marathons, goes crimson within minutes and still sometimes has to argue with her own brain before getting out of the door.

I know what it’s like to feel as though everyone else has been given a map you somehow missed. Running became the thing that made me feel most like myself: quieter, stronger and genuinely, properly alive.

I’m building Mind Your Run as one runner talking to another. I want it to help new runners start without feeling judged, come back without being punished for the gap, and build a relationship with running that makes them feel good about themselves.

Not because every run will be easy.
Because you’re allowed to be a beginner—and every time you go counts.