May 2020

So May, then. Sixty-eight activities and just over 53 hours of moving around, which sounds impressive until you remember that about half of it was essentially just walking out of the front door during lockdown and hoping nobody nicked your permitted daily exercise slot. The running was probably the highlight — 13 runs, 130 kilometres, and 35 PRs, which I'll take, even if some of those personal records are partly explained by the fact that I've apparently been running the same roads enough times that Strava is starting to feel sorry for me. The Double Bridge Run and a few of the longer weekend efforts felt genuinely good, and my average pace crept down to 5:19 per kilometre, which for me in spring sunshine is about as optimistic as it gets. Joe Wicks also featured heavily — 25 workouts, including what appears to be PE Day 50, meaning I somehow kept that going for most of the month (the kids, to their credit, lasted about three sessions before rediscovering the sofa).

So compared to April, the overall numbers are actually slightly down — 68 activities versus 74, and about 300 fewer minutes of total moving — which tells its own quiet story. The Joe Wicks sessions dropped from 33 to 25, and I suspect longer evenings and the novelty of actually being able to run further had something to do with that trade-off. The running pace improved and the PRs nearly doubled, which suggests the legs are building into something, even if the training structure remains best described as opportunistic. The question going into June is whether I can hold that momentum or whether the British summer will do what the British summer tends to do and make the whole thing feel pointless by about the second week.

Summary generated by Claude