August 2015

So August ended up being a bit of a mixed bag — 20 activities logged across the month, with a reasonable split between riding and running that at least gives the impression of someone with a plan. The riding was mostly Boris Bike commutes (14 of them, which sounds more heroic than it is when you factor in that the hills of London are largely fictional), covering 32.5 kilometres and picking up 9 personal records, presumably because I'd set the bar low enough in previous months. The running is where things got a bit more interesting though — 6 runs, 41.4 kilometres, and an average pace of 6:34 per kilometre, which for me in the height of a British summer counts as flying. Those 11 achievements and 4 PRs suggest the legs were at least cooperating, even if the rest of me hadn't fully committed to the idea.

Compared to July, the overall picture is slightly down on volume — 388 minutes active versus 456 the month before, and fewer activities overall — but the running tells a different story. I covered 41.4 kilometres running in August against just 25.6 in July, and knocked a solid 25 seconds per kilometre off my average pace, which I'll take. So it seems the riding dropped off a bit (half the distance of July, roughly) while the running quietly had a decent month. Whether that's a deliberate shift in focus or just how the diary fell, I honestly couldn't tell you — but if the legs keep moving in that direction, there might be something worth training for before the year's out.

Summary generated by Claude