Over the past year that I’ve been leading my beginners’ running groups, my runners have taught me quite a lot about running. I arrogantly thought that I’d be the one doing all the teaching and they’d be the ones doing the learning, but it’s a two-way street.

My beginner runners start off running for one minute at a time and each week we gradually increase the distance or time that they’re running for until, hey presto, they’re running for half an hour non-stop. For some of them it’s not a straight line from 1 to 30 minutes – sometimes they can’t run as far as the week before. This is normal and while they feel a bit disheartened when this happens, I try to reassure them with my three rules of progress.

There’s three easy ways that you can measure your progression as a runner. The first two are the two that we think about all the time and the third is overlooked a lot of the time but is equally, or more, important.

Speed and distance are the obvious two. If you could only run a mile last week but this week you’re running a mile and a half, that’s an easy sign of progression. And if you ran a mile in 12 minutes last month but this month it only takes you 10 minutes, well that’s a pretty obvious indicator of progression too.

The overlooked indicator is when the speed and or distance that you run for stays the same, but you find it easier. You stopped running after a mile but you felt good as opposed to last week when you were close to collapsing on the floor. That’s progression but it’s often overlooked because it’s a less sexy indicator than a new time or distance PB. But it’s just as important.

On my wall I have some post-it notes with my mile splits of a few key long runs from last year’s marathon training. As I tick off the runs as I head towards London marathon it’s easy to compare the numbers on the post-it with the ones I’ve just notched up on my watch. At the moment they’re pretty similar, and on some runs they’ve been slower and it’s easy to come to the conclusion that I’m less fit or slower than I was last year.

But as I get back from each run, have a shower and make something to eat it’s clear that there’s something else happening. My legs are less tired, I don’t need to sit down for half an hour to recover before getting in the shower, I don’t feel too sick to even think about eating and the next morning when I get up for work, my legs don’t hurt and those first few steps aren’t a hobble.

While my training runs aren’t any faster, it’s clear that I’m stronger than I was a year ago. And without my beginner runners highlighting this in their own progress, I might not have noticed it.