September 2021

So September turned out to be a reasonably busy month, all things considered — 37 activities and just over 24 hours of moving around, which sounds impressive until you realise a chunk of that was walking to places I probably could have driven. The running was the headline act: 9 runs, nearly 80km and 68 achievements, which at this point I'm fairly sure Strava hands out for things like "managed to tie your laces correctly." I did crack 24 PRs though, so something must have been going right, even if I can't entirely explain what. I also got back on the bike for a couple of virtual rides — Watopia and Makuri Islands on Zwift, which is a very comfortable way to feel like a cyclist without actually having to deal with British roads in autumn — and kept the FiiT workouts ticking over, both the general sessions and a rare outing for the weight training, which I'm choosing to count as progress.

Compared to August, the running dropped off noticeably — 9 runs versus 14, and about 30km fewer on the legs — which is perhaps not surprising as the mornings started getting darker and that particular motivation tends to evaporate somewhere around mid-September. August had been a solid block with over 110km of running and 44 PRs, so in fairness there was always going to be some natural tapering, even if "tapering" is perhaps a generous way to describe going to bed instead of heading out at 6am. The walking volume actually went up, which I'll take as evidence that I was still getting out there, just at a pace that required somewhat less suffering. So heading into October, the question is whether I can hold things together as the weather turns properly grim — history suggests this is where good intentions go to die, but let's see.

Summary generated by Claude