Four years ago, Anna Archer ran her first marathon in 5:27. She cried at 30K, said she'd never run another one, and took four months off.

She's now done five. Her most recent was 3:59.

This week on The Runna Podcast, Anya and Ben sit down with Anna for one of the most honest conversations the show has had - about marathon progression, self-belief, and how running completely changed the way she sees her body.

Watch or listen to the full episode to hear the full conversation.

Anna has been moving her whole life: trampolines in the garden as a kid, gym at 13, fitness content online from 18. But running wasn't part of the picture until a friend could run a half marathon and she decided she wanted to as well.

Within a month of starting, she'd signed up for a marathon. That first one was brutal. She went out too fast, hit the wall at 26K, and spent the back half dealing with her own mind telling her she wasn't good enough. It wasn't just physical - she'd told everyone on her platforms she was doing it, and the external noise made one of the hardest physical challenges she'd ever faced even harder. What happened across the next four marathons is what this episode is really about.

The turning point, Anna says, was Paris. She hadn't planned to race. She was going to support a friend, had a ticket behind the scenes, wandered into the expo, got excited, and decided to run. Nobody knew. She didn't post it. There was no external pressure just her and the race. It went really well. Then Sydney: her favourite training block, her favourite race, a PB of 3:59. Again, she went in focused on the process rather than the result.

Anna talks openly about learning to give herself grace - something that didn't come naturally, and took years of personal growth to find. She describes a shift from sharing everything immediately – every worry, every setback, every bad run – to processing things privately first.

Taking things to a therapist or a journal before putting them online. Building the mental habit of being kind to herself before reacting.

It's made her a better runner. And she thinks it's made her more useful to the people who follow her - because when things go wrong, she can model what it looks like to handle a setback without punishing yourself for it.

Anna's advice to anyone starting out - or anyone who's been putting something off - is straightforward. You don't need to know where you're going to end up. You just need to take the next step. She describes her approach to every new challenge the same way: find the thing just beyond what you can currently do, go and get it, then find the next one.

It's how she went from 5:27 to sub-4. And it's how she's approaching everything that comes next.

Listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts and watch on YouTube.