2018

So, 2018 is done and dusted, and looking back at the numbers it's been a reasonably solid year — 181 activities and just over 3,300 minutes of moving about, which sounds impressive until you realise that's barely 55 hours across a whole year (roughly ten minutes a day, though I'll take it). The big shift was throwing a lot more cycling into the mix, racking up 84 rides and nearly 395 kilometres in the saddle, which I'm quietly pleased about given that climbing 2,167 metres of elevation is the kind of thing that hurts more than you expect it to at the time. Running stayed busy too with 71 outings covering just under 270 kilometres, and I managed 10 personal records along the way, which suggests that occasionally pushing a bit harder actually works. Twenty-three swims rounded things out nicely — all indoor, obviously, because I'm not a maniac.

Comparing back to 2017 though, it's a slightly mixed picture if I'm honest with myself, which I suppose is the point of doing this. The total minutes actually dropped — from about 3,950 down to 3,305 — and my running distance fell off a cliff, from 457 kilometres all the way down to 270, which is the kind of stat that's hard to dress up. On the plus side, the cycling nearly doubled in both sessions and distance, my running pace improved from 6:51 to 6:07 per kilometre (so the fewer runs were at least faster ones), and the overall activity count went up by nearly 40. So the direction of travel is more variety, slightly less raw volume — whether that's a deliberate strategic pivot or just life getting in the way is probably a question best left unanswered.

Summary generated by Claude