September 2009

So September turned out to be a fairly solid month by my recent standards, which is to say I actually got out of bed and did something resembling training on a semi-regular basis. Thirteen runs, just under a hundred kilometres, and nearly ten hours of moving — not bad for a month that started with the usual best intentions and, for once, didn't immediately collapse into excuses. The average pace crept down to 5:56 per kilometre, which is marginally less embarrassing than I'm used to, and somewhere in among the morning runs I managed to pick up 19 personal records, which either means I'm getting fitter or my previous performances were even worse than I remembered (almost certainly both). The Morning Run sessions were the backbone of it really — nothing glamorous, just getting out before the day had a chance to intervene.

Compared to August, the jump is pretty stark — thirteen runs against five, and nearly sixty kilometres more on the legs. August had a couple of rides thrown in, a Lunch Ride and a Morning Ride that I suspect were more optimistic than athletic, and the running was frankly underwhelming at 41 kilometres across the whole month. So what changed? Honestly, the bike seems to have disappeared from proceedings entirely, and autumn has a way of concentrating the mind — there's something about the mornings getting darker and colder that makes you either stop altogether or decide you're a runner now. I appear to have gone the latter route, which is encouraging, though I'm aware that October has a habit of testing that particular resolve quite thoroughly.

Summary generated by Claude