2017 - the final numbers

The great thing about using something like a Garmin watch is that you get so many facts back about your running (and weight training, swimming, cycling and dog walking).  Here's how 2017 looks for my running:

Total Distance:  982.02 miles. Thanks to a few snow days that meant missing runs that's 12 miles short of my target of 1000 miles in a year.  It didn't help that I also missed quite a few runs early in the year when DH was ill.  

Time spent running: 191 hours 36 minutes 31 seconds. That's almost 8 days.

Calories burned:  81,591.  I like this stat - when you consider that ultra-running is often said to be a cake and crisps eating contest that's 21.9 kg of chocolate cake 😋 or 435 packets of crisps I could have eaten. (Dread to think what 435 packets of crisps would do to my blood pressure though!)

Elevation gained: 16,480 metres. Or 1.8 times the height of Everest.

Average pace: 11 mins 41 secs /mile  (5.1 mph) but this includes the times I was completing ultra runs where the pace drops because of the distance, walking breaks, aid station stops and running on trails.  If you exclude the ultra runs then my average paces was 9 mins 30 secs /mile (6.3 mph) which is still pretty slow.

Most miles in a month: 206 in August which was peak training for the Westminster to Cheltenham run.  Although 145 miles in 4 days is the most concentrated running I ran very little in the following 2 weeks while recovering which knocks the months total down quite a bit.

Average length of run: 5.99 miles

Based on a BBC Sport article on the UK's exercise habits, excluding ultra runs, I'm slightly faster than the average woman runner in the UK (09:34 per mile) and on average I run 1.4 times as far on each occasion (UK average 4.3 miles).  Not that it really matters of course, most of us are only competing with ourselves.

Time to reset the miles counter for 2018.

Christmas Day Running

During November the local gym had a promotion to encourage everyone to get through 7000 calories of effort before Christmas.  Apparently 7000 calories is the average Christmas dinner.  

Today's run only came to 224 calories (with another 165 for walking Marley).  But there's only so much you can fit in with so little daylight at this time of year.  On the other hand dinner didn't come to anywhere near 7000 calories.  I mean how can you eat that much?  Even on the W2C run when we were eating constantly through the day we were only managing to put away about 3500 calories.

Christmas Day is a great time for a run.  Especially when you have a power cut in the middle of the day which takes away the excuse of needing to do something else.  A few people heading for the pub commented that running isn't the right thing to do today but what do they know.  I expect they'll be in the gym for a few days next month then all their good intentions will slide away again.

Snow!

So it snowed heavily on Sunday and it's been below freezing most of the last two days.  Thank goodness for the gym.  Running on the treadmill is pretty dull but it's better than breaking something and not running at all for six weeks or more.

Not that the gym is much warmer.  I wondered why most people inside were wearing long sleeved tops and few were wearing shorts.  Today the staff were sat in fleeces and fingerless mittens even though the reception area is noticeable warmer than the gym itself.  It's better cold than hot though.  I used to go to a gym that was so hot you broke into a sweat just walking across the room.

Rain forecast tonight - wonder if it will wash all the snow away?

Winter Running

A couple of weeks away on holiday and it's suddenly dark before I leave work of an evening and much colder too.  Instead of shorts and t-shirts I've had to switch to long sleeved tops, running tights and more high vis than is fashionable.  Then add a hat, head torch and gloves.  

It makes running seem so much harder.  Starting out in the dark is much more daunting than it going dark while you're out.  You run slower even in well lit areas which makes you wonder where your fitness has gone.  And it's far easier to twist an ankle on a pothole which I have done (painfully) twice this week.

With the lack of focus on an event and all the pre-Christmas distractions it was a struggle to get motivated and go for a run and I was thinking maybe stop running long distances and just concentrate on the 10k and Half Marathon.  Then I read an article "Five lessons from a year of ultra running".  And it reminded me of all the reasons I like ultra's.  So it's time to stop messing around, dig out the winter base training plan again and get on with preparing for something next year, even if I've not yet decided what that something is.