January 2010

So January, then. Three runs, 22.4 kilometres, and 146 minutes of what I can only loosely describe as dedicated training. Not exactly the kind of numbers that are going to trouble the record books, but given that it's the middle of a British winter and the alarm goes off into complete darkness, I'll take it. The Morning Run sessions were the backbone of it — nothing glamorous, just getting out before the day got in the way. The average pace of 6:32 per kilometre tells its own story, though in my defence the 242 metres of elevation suggests at least some of it was genuinely hard going (or I live somewhere hillier than I remember).

Compared to December, which managed a grand total of one run — 7.1 kilometres and 43 minutes, a number so small it barely qualifies as a month — January does at least represent something resembling momentum. Interestingly December's single outing was actually quicker at 6:02 per kilometre, which probably says more about the distance than any latent speed on my part. So the volume is heading in the right direction, even if the pace isn't exactly screaming fitness. The honest truth is that going from one run a month to three isn't a training plan, it's a mild improvement in self-discipline — but you have to start somewhere, and apparently that somewhere is a dark January morning.

Summary generated by Claude