Staying on track, just...

Today felt pretty tough - I was tired after yesterday's celebrations and long evening run, but decided to pack my running kit and take it to work with the plan to run at lunchtime. 


By lunchtime I wasn't having a particularly productive day, work-wise, so decided to have a shorter lunch break and update the spreadsheet I'm using to track my progress towards my annual running and total miles targets. 


The spreadsheet was both encouraging and disappointing in equal measure. It shows that I'm well on course for my running target (2012 km this year), in fact I'm doing so well (I've run 81 miles versus a target of only 44), that I'm wondering whether I should have gone for 2012 miles as my target rather than 2012 km. The disappointing news was that I'm already well down on my overall target (aiming to do 5000 total miles of running/walking/cycling/swimming in 2012) - I should be on 177.6 miles, but I'm over 40 miles behind that! 


I know that this time of year it's going to be tougher to rack up the miles on the bike (which I'm going to have to do in the summer to have a chance of hitting my overall number), but also don't want to get too far behind before regular morning / evening rides become easier to fit in. 


I'm hoping to get some miles in on the bike tomorrow morning while the boys are at music school, and then possibly going out again in the afternoon. The day will start with our weekly pilgrimage to Colwick for Parkrun of course. I'm expecting there will be a good turn out of friends, and there's no doubt it will be loads of fun as always, though it could potentially be a bit icy as the temperature has really dropped today. 


Tonight's run was a short, cold affair, and for once, I ran on my own. I still felt a little flat when I started the run, with my legs still a bit tight from last night, and it was more a case of getting the miles in and keeping my streak going than any particular desire to run hard or test myself too much. I decided to take it fairly steady and to make my mission to scope out another 5K route round home, rather than trying to break any records. 


I wanted to make the route a bit hillier than the "standard" 5K that we run from here, so I headed down the hill towards Arnold, then looped round and fairly close to Mum and Dad's, before finishing with a long slow drag up Ramsey Drive and home. I'm happy to have another 5K route mapped out so that I can mix it up with the "Standard" one, or add them together for a 10K that would never be more than a couple of miles from here. 


I also did #Plankaday (3:36 again) and #Pressupathon before heading out for the run, and found them a bit tougher than my usual morning time to do them.


I'm really looking forward to a weekend with hopefully lots more runs, walks and rides, as well as some more celebrating of Sarah's birthday with a big Indian meal tomorrow night, then another day off work for a Spa Day with Sarah on Monday (combined birthday / Christmas present). 


Here's how the year now looks:



Running: 81.21 miles (130.67K)
Walking: 7.5 miles
Cycling: 40.95 miles
Swimming: 0 miles
Total: 134.61 miles 
Running streak: 52 days (started 23/11/2011)



Have a great weekend.