2009

So 2009 turned out to be a year that was almost entirely about running, which I suspect will surprise precisely nobody who's seen the state of my cycling kit gathering dust in the garage. Fifty-four runs in total, covering just over 429 kilometres at an average pace of around six minutes per kilometre — which is either a respectable club jogger's year or a very slow one, depending on who you ask. The highlight was undoubtedly the Marlow Half Marathon, and racking up 123 personal records across the year suggests that at least some of those kilometres were doing something useful. The two bike rides I managed (two, in an entire year) were, let's say, more of a token gesture than a training programme.

So comparing 2009 with 2008 makes for an interesting, if slightly humbling, read. Last year I rode six times and ran once, which means I've essentially swapped the disciplines entirely and somehow managed to multiply my activity count by eight in the process — so there's progress, of a sort. The minutes on the move jumped from 557 to 2,671, which is the kind of number that sounds impressive until you realise most of it was shuffling around Marlow at a heart rate of 174 bpm looking faintly distressed. Still, the direction of travel is clearly the right one, and if 2010 involves slightly less ignoring the bike and slightly more respecting what proper training actually looks like, that would probably be no bad thing.

Summary generated by Claude