2025 was the year I committed to running consistently. Not occasionally, not when it was convenient. Consistently.

The numbers

My first four-digit running year. Over 142 active days, I logged 113 hours of running with 2,500 meters of elevation gain across the Belgian landscape.

For context, in 2024 I had covered roughly 200 kilometers by August. By the same point in 2025, I was at 630. Same runner, completely different consistency.

What changed

The honest answer: I stopped treating running as something I fit in when convenient and started treating it as non-negotiable. With twin 3-year-olds at home and a full-time job, “convenient” rarely exists. I had to make it work anyway.

The math of parenthood and professional life means I averaged 2.7 runs per week. Not the 5-6 days that training plans love to prescribe. But consistency over perfection, week after week, month after month, compounds into something real.

The races

September brought a new half marathon PR: 1:57. A 5:33/km pace for 21.1 kilometers. Not elite, not even close. But a solid improvement that showed the consistent training was paying off.

Earlier in the year, I ran a 15K race in 1:21—a 5:24/km pace that gave me confidence the aerobic engine was building.

The 10K surprise. My previous PR sat at 54 minutes. On a regular training run, not even trying to race, I looked down at my watch after 10K: 51:47. A 4-minute PR on what felt like a normal effort. That’s when I started believing the training was actually working.

The data behind the feeling

Running with a Garmin means having receipts. Here’s what the numbers showed:

Aerobic efficiency climbed from 0.65 to 0.80+. My body learned to do more with less.

Easy pace dropped from 8:00+/km to 6:47/km. What used to feel like work became genuinely easy.

The year-over-year comparison tells the clearest story. Same 5K route, one year apart. In October 2024: 6:14/km pace at 168 bpm average heart rate. In October 2025: 6:09/km pace at 154 bpm. Faster with a heart rate 14 beats lower. That’s not fitness—that’s transformation.

The long runs

By November, I was running 24 kilometers at a 6:30/km pace. Two and a half hours on my feet, moving through Flemish countryside, feeling genuinely good. The half marathon distance stopped feeling like a maximum and started feeling like a checkpoint.

The conversation with myself shifted from “managing the distance” to “chasing a time”

What I learned

Volume matters, but consistency matters more. My average of 19 km per week won’t win any training awards. But I showed up 142 times. That reliability built a foundation that sporadic 40K weeks never could.

Easy means easy. I spent too much of early 2025 running in a gray zone—not hard enough to build speed, not easy enough to recover. Learning to actually slow down on easy days unlocked everything else.

The 80/20 rule isn’t optional. 80% of my kilometers at conversational pace, 20% with intention. When I followed it, I improved. When I ignored it, I stagnated.

Heart rate doesn’t lie. The zones felt wrong at first—too slow, too constraining. But training by heart rate forced me to build a real aerobic base instead of constantly dipping into reserves I didn’t have.

Looking forward: 2026

The goal crystallized during a long run in November: sub-1:50 half marathon. That’s 5:12/km for 21.1 kilometers—21 seconds faster per kilometer than my September race.

Seven minutes doesn’t sound like much. It’s everything.

The plan: 4 runs per week for 40 weeks, with 12 weeks of flex for when life happens. Process over outcome. Show up, do the work, let the time come.

Beyond that, there’s a question I wasn’t ready to ask myself 12 months ago: what about the marathon?

The real achievement

Breaking 1,000 kilometers wasn’t about the number. It was about proving that consistency compounds.

A year ago, running was something I did when I could find the time. This year, I made the time. The difference showed up in every metric—pace, heart rate, endurance, and most importantly, how I feel when I lace up my shoes.

The kilometers will keep accumulating. The times will keep dropping. But the habit? That’s already locked in.