5 Months' "Worth" of Numbers

Sure, it’s not just about the running… but some of it is!

And sure, I’m working on a couple of genuine non-running posts. But they’re taking a while… so here’s a stopgap post, in the shape of my stats for the past…

…five months!

It dawned on me last week that I’d failed to report on these: so, if only for my benefit should I ever have to google this with no access to Garmin (as if…), and potentially of no worth whatsoever to you, here goes:

JULY:

Count:                    38 Activities

Distance:               323.73 mi (10.44mi/day)

Time:                      49h00’24”

Elevation Gain:     16,797 ft (51.9ft/mi)

Avg Speed:            6.6 mph

AUGUST:

Count:                    36 Activities

Distance:               343.72 mi (11.09/day)

Time:                      51h43’09”

Elevation Gain:     16,770 ft (48.8ft/mi)

Avg Speed:            6.6 mph

SEPTEMBER:

Count:                    35 Activities

Distance:               265.62 mi (8.85/day)

Time:                      40h27’59”

Elevation Gain:     12,645 ft (47.6ft/mi)

Avg Speed:            6.6 mph

OCTOBER:

Count:                    32 Activities

Distance:               241.80 mi (7.80mi/day)

Time:                      36h04’07”

Elevation Gain:     12,223 ft (50.6ft/mi)

Avg Speed:            6.7 mph

NOVEMBER:

Count:                    39 Activities

Distance:               270.03 mi (9.00mi/day)

Time:                      41h16’13”

Elevation Gain:     15,116 ft (55.98/mi)

Avg Speed:            6.5 mph

2013 To Date (Jan-Nov):

Count:                    383 Activities

Distance:               2,795.42 mi (8.37mi/day)

Time:                     408h33’03”

Elevation Gain:     129,828 ft (46.44/mi)

Avg Speed:            6.8 mph

Really happy with where I’m at in terms of hillage. In the first six months of the year I’d averaged 43.50ft/mi: to get to where I am now, I’ve averaged 50.90ft/mi in the five months since. And feeling better for it! Hillage and speedwork need to come even more into play next year, though not necessarily during the same session. Not that a few reps wouldn’t go amiss… I did start this year, I just eased up (OK – ‘stopped’) too soon! Speed has suffered of late and that’s something I need to rectify. Just trust me a little when I say that it’s easier to speed things up a bit under the sun than it is in pre-dawn late autumn runs!

With 204.58mi to go, it seems like 3,000 might be a reasonable target for overall 2013 mileage… and trust me, that is beyond what I thought was achievable at the start of the year! I knew #2013in2013 was within reach, and I thought I could stretch to 2,500 if I kept managing 200mi/month. But 3,000…

…well, let’s see if I can pull it off. There’s something called “Christmas” coming up!

First things first, though – and my two priorities for December are:

1. Wyvern Christmas Cracker 10k – looking to set a PB (current: 47’03”). Let’s just hope the Weston sand is dry on December 15th;
2. get that 100th Half Marathon run

At time of writing, I’ve run 96 of the damn things. With 28 days to go in the year, I feel increasingly within touching distance. Which means that I’m increasingly nervous about getting injured, about an Arctic freeze blowing over Britain (the press helps with that)… but hopefully I’ll get this goal tied up before the middle of the month. And boy will you hear all about it then……that and my training plans for 2014. Fewer HMs, for sure. Probably more long runs, certainly more short / tempo runs. But definitely fewer HMs.

(what’s that? Did you just say that wrapping up the 100 HM target by the middle of the month should leave me well placed to hit 205 miles for the month, not least since we’re only three days in and I’ve actually already run 32.55mi in December, leaving me needing to cover 172.03mi over 28 days at 6.14mi/day when my YTD average is 8.37? Hmmm… I suppose you might have a point there…)