April 2026

April was, to put it kindly, a month of managed expectations. So following an appendectomy in late March, most of April was spent reminding myself that walking to the kitchen counts as active recovery (it does, I checked). The numbers tell the story: 33 activities, just over 25 hours of movement in total, with walking doing the heavy lifting at 119.8 km across 24 sessions. The highlight — if you can call it that — was lacing up for a slow, cautious 5km on the treadmill mid-month, my first run since the surgery, covering 26.1 km in total across five runs at a pace (6:33 /km) that I'd usually be embarrassed about, but under the circumstances felt like a minor triumph.

Compared to March, the drop-off is stark but entirely explainable. March was a solid month — 50 activities, nearly 37 hours, 71.8 km of running at a considerably more respectable 5:41 /km, plus a couple of swims and ten HIIT sessions — and then the appendix had other ideas. So April became less about fitness and more about not doing anything stupid while the stitches were still fresh (the temptation to "just push through" is real and also deeply idiotic). The HIIT sessions dropped from ten down to four, the runs shrank, the swims disappeared entirely. The plan going forward is simple enough: build back gradually, resist the urge to pretend March still happened, and maybe get back in the pool soon for some technique work before the competitive instincts kick back in.

Summary generated by Claude