February 2009

So February, and three runs totalling just under 19km across about 109 minutes of actual moving. Not exactly the training diary of an elite athlete, but then it's February in England, which I think most reasonable people would accept as a legitimate mitigating factor. The pace crept out to around 5:52 per kilometre — slower than January, which is the wrong direction — though I did somehow rack up five personal records along the way, which either means I'm quietly improving in ways I don't fully understand, or the bar was simply set very low to begin with. The Morning Run sessions were the backbone of it, nothing glamorous, just getting out of the door before the world woke up and the excuses had time to form.

Compared to January's solitary outing — one run, 7km, 39 minutes, which is really more of a gentle suggestion of fitness than an actual training month — February does at least represent progress of a sort. Three runs versus one is, mathematically speaking, three times the commitment, and the total distance nearly tripled, so the trend is pointing in the right direction even if the overall numbers remain fairly modest. The elevation gain nudged up to 86 metres, which sounds almost meaningful until you remember this is across the whole month. So going forward the challenge is obvious enough: keep the consistency, resist the very British temptation to let a grey morning and a warm duvet win, and see whether March can string together something that actually resembles a training plan.

Summary generated by Claude