December 2011

So December, then. Three runs, 17.8 kilometres, and 114 minutes of actual effort — which, if I'm being honest with myself, is about as much as I could reasonably have expected given that it's December in England and the alarm goes off in the dark and it's cold and wet and the sofa is right there. The standout session was a Morning Run, which I'll generously describe as that, though I suspect "survival shuffle" might be more accurate. Still, the pace came in at around 6:24 per kilometre, which is marginally quicker than November's 6:31, so clearly the reduced volume is doing wonders for my speed (or, more likely, the routes were just flatter).

November feels like a distant memory now — 35.3 kilometres, 230 minutes, six personal records, and the small matter of the Marlow Half Marathon, which as ever I approached with roughly the preparation it deserved. So going from that kind of mileage, with 503 metres of elevation and a heart rate averaging 167 bpm, down to less than half the distance in December is a fairly sharp drop-off even by my standards. The honest reason is probably a combination of shorter days, the post-race slump that always follows a half marathon, and a general willingness to negotiate with myself about what constitutes a "rest week." Going into the new year, the intention — as it always is — is to build back up properly, though I've made that particular promise to myself before.

Summary generated by Claude