It's over! Time to rest - but not to stop...

And that was that for Janathon...


I was hoping that tonight's final #Janathon run would be a group affair, as Andy Next Door and Paul Across The Road had both planned to come with me. Unfortunately, they couldn't make it, so it ended up, for once, just being me, myself and my thoughts. 


I made up the route as I went - I only needed to run 3 miles to bring up 200 for the month of just running, and also knew it would take me over 3500 total miles since I started using RunKeeper last April... 


I ended up running a bit further than planned down Spring Lane, and my pace and form were a bit up and down at times as the footpath was very bumpy and their were no street lights to navigate by. I decided to run back up the road, but that wasn't much better, as every time a car came towards me, I had to jump back to the footpath (a few feet from the road), as I wasn't wearing particularly reflective clothing and didn't want to end #Janathon with a crash!


By the time I got home 26 minutes or so later, I'd added another 3.5 miles to my January total, to go with 1.5 miles of walking at lunchtime. I didn't push too hard, so I was reasonably happy with the pace, given how tired my legs felt before, during and after the run. 


As I ran, my thoughts were mainly about the rest of the year, and what I'd like to achieve, but I also did allow myself to reflect on just how far I've come over the past year, and how January has gone, and I have to admit, I couldn't be much happier! 


During January, I've run further than ever before (200.5 miles, previous best was 152 in December, and in January last year I ran 0 miles!), walked further than ever (nearly 33 miles) and I've managed a grand total of 317.67 miles (walking, running, riding and swimming combined). 


That means I'm well ahead of my target of 2012Km of running for 2012, but well behind where I need to be to hit my overall self-propelled target of 5012 miles. This month has shown me that to hit the overall target, I'm going to have to be on my bike a lot from March to October (when there's more daylight) and I'm worried that may mean that I have to cut back on the running to achieve the overall total miles. 


For now though, I'm planning to keep running every day (I'm up to 70 days in a row now) while I am enjoying doing it, and physically able to do so - and worry about how to fit everything else in once the evenings are lighter. 


One thing I definitely won't be doing every day any more, is writing this blog - over the month I've had conflicting thoughts about whether to keep it up or not (it takes a lot of time!), but the positive feedback I've had from lots of people has encouraged me to not stop completely. I will definitely be taking a break from writing though, at least for a few days, and then will probably pen posts again when there are exciting things to report (PBs, races, new running team members, etc.), rather than promising to do it weekly, monthly etc. 


And that's pretty much that - other than to report that I broke my #Plankaday record again today - 7 minutes 5 seconds !! I'm planning to keep that challenge going (though not planning to do it for that long every day), and I'll be continuing with #Pressupathon and #Situpathon too, they are starting to get tougher now! 


Finally, just a quick note to say thanks to everyone who's supported me this month - my parents, James and Kieran, Sarah, Ellie & Stu, all my Twitter and Facebook buddies, and everyone who's commented on this blog - all the kind words, encouragement and support are massively appreciated. 


Here's the final summary for January: 



Running: 200.44 miles
Walking: 32.86 miles
Cycling: 84.12 miles
Swimming: 0.25 miles
Total: 317.67 miles
Running streak: 70 days (started 23/11/2011)



Thanks again, and until the next time.


Mike