November 2013

So November, then. Three runs, just under 29km and a little over three hours of actual moving — which sounds reasonable until you consider that one of those three runs was the Marlow Half Marathon, meaning the other two were fairly token efforts in the surrounding weeks. The half itself was the obvious highlight, or at least the obvious main event (highlight might be pushing it). Average pace crept out to 6:40 per kilometre, which tells its own story, and with an average heart rate of 178 I was clearly working considerably harder than I was moving. On the plus side, 12 achievements, which I suspect Garmin hands out more generously the less frequently you actually run.

Comparing back to October is mildly sobering. Four runs, 30.5km, a slightly brisker 6:29 pace, and four personal bests — so by almost every measure October was the better month, and it had one fewer notable race to carry the numbers. The honest answer is that November is November: dark by half four, cold enough to make the alarm feel like a personal attack, and the kind of weather that turns a perfectly reasonable training plan into a list of good intentions. So going into December the bar is not exactly set high, which is either a problem or, if I'm generous with myself, an opportunity. We'll see.

Summary generated by Claude