January 2020

So January turned out to be a fairly productive month, all things considered — 54 activities and just shy of 29 hours of moving about in various directions, which sounds more impressive than it probably was. The running was the headline act: 11 runs, 95 kilometres, and an average pace of 5:40 per kilometre, which I'll take for a British January where every morning feels like a personal attack. I picked up 24 PRs along the way (some of those were indoor, so I'm choosing not to look too closely at the legitimacy), and managed to get out to Horsham and a few other places that weren't my living room, which felt like an achievement in itself. I also mixed things up with six swims, a handful of HIIT and FiiT sessions, some functional strength work, and even a couple of yoga sessions — presumably because someone told me stretching was important, and for once I listened.

Comparing that to December's rather more modest 14 activities and 483 minutes, the jump is fairly stark — though to be fair to December, it had Christmas in it, which I think most people would accept as a reasonable excuse for doing very little. The mileage nearly doubled (48 to 95 kilometres running alone), the activity count went up almost fourfold, and I actually started treating swimming and cross-training as things I do rather than things I intend to do. So the question now, as the days remain resolutely short and cold, is whether I can hold onto this momentum or whether February will find a way to quietly undo all of it.

Summary generated by Claude