Wednesday 31 December 2014

December - Month 2 - Record Mileage, Visitors and Eating

The month of December is always my favourite month of the year and this year was no exception. It was the last Christmas at my parents house as they move to pastures new in the New Year. We managed to get the whole family together for it, including my brother and his wife who were over from Sydney, my other brother and his girlfriend who were down from Lincolnshire for the holidays and my sister and her boyfriend as well as my parents. We also had my wife's Mum, Brother and Dog down for a few nights and so we were either hosting or being hosted for much of the holidays. Also our friends Amy and Col were back from China and so we paid them a visit or two in Sandy and also managed to fit in a day trip to Stratford upon Avon. All in all a very busy holiday period. The beginning of December was also busy at work. This all meant fitting in exercise would require some desire and some planning.

Thankfully I made time and as well as a little cycle commuting I managed to run a fair bit. I ran on 20 days and for a combined mileage of 158 miles another big record mileage month for me. I doubled up on a few days, nothing serious a couple of warm ups for the parkruns I ran and a lovely run in Sandy with my friend Amy who has recently had her first child. In total I completed 23 runs as follows:

6 x Commutes - Run commutes home of 7.5 miles each.
2 x parkruns - 20:13 with Joe and 20:17 with Luke both big improvements on any of my parkruns in the last couple of years.
2 x parkrun warm ups
1 x Run with Amy
3 x Long Runs - 2 x 17 miles and 1 x HM with Joe really pushing the pace in the last 5km.
1 x Tempo Run - 7 Miles at 7:15 min miles. Very pleasing.
8 x Easy/Steady/General runs - Distances ranging from 5 miles to 7.5 miles.

So 6 quality sessions with the parkruns, the long runs and the tempo run. I was very pleased with the outcomes of all of these (other than losing to my younger siblings in both parkruns) I am starting to see the benefits of two big mileage months back to back. I also enjoyed running with Luke, Joe and Amy. Running is the perfect setting for a catch up.

I have a parkrun planned for tomorrow to start the New Year and then my first big race to really measure my progress is the Great Bentley Half Marathon in early February. Still not sure on time targets for that race, but the results of that will strongly influence what I will target in the Marathon in April. Another month in the bank, now a busy January at work to get through and to fit my training around that. I will be back tomorrow to write up my parkrun result and to have a run down of 2014 in it's entirety.

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