END OF THE YEAR, END OF THE DECADE!

Sunday saw the sun going down on yet another year of training and racing.......................

Being pedantic, it would have been quite good to finish my year, which actually started on Monday Dec.29,with a week of 56 miles. This would have given me a grand total of 2392 for the 52 weeks, averaging 46 miles. As it was with all the snow and guests to think about ,I think I did quite well to get in 53 miles, just falling short.

   Nevertheless, the last of the year on Sunday was quite a satisfying one.  The ladies of the household were planning  a Skipton visit so I had them drop me off near Halton East on the A59 and I ran the 11 miles back
on clear back lanes with little or no traffic.  This is an old favourite marathon training route of mine from Ilkley which does a circuit of Embsay halfway before returning as I did via Hesketh's Farm, Bolton Abbey Village, Beamsley village and Nesfield.  Even managed to intersperse the 11 with 3 tempo pace miles to add to the effort. Pleasing after the 12 miles covered on Christmas day, two days prior.
   So 2389 miles for 2009.  The majoirty of them Garmin measured. so probably the most accurate total of all the years I been keeping records!  REVIEW TIME!..............
.................................how did the year go?
.................................how did the decade go?
.................................are there any lessons to be learnt?
and the big question........can the downward spiral of slower times be halted?
    I appreciate that the number of miles run in the year is not always a measure alone of effort and consistency.  If too many of those miles are covered at too leisurely a pace, too far above race pace, then the regime perhaps needs to be looked at. (Perhaps come back to that!)  But hey it's useful to look back and
compare 2009 with the last few years.   The last significant break I had was in 2002 when I had the Morton's Neuroma operation that year I covered 2058 then.............

2003/ 2242       2004/2800      2005/2461     2006/2299      2007/2621      2008/2274      2009/2389
  (43.11)              (53.94)            (47.32)           (44.21)             (50.4)            (43.73)          (45.94)
       A good degree of consistency only half a dozen days missed; 3 blips due to chest virus, back strain
whilst cleaning the car and a fall whilst gardening! So all in all quite pleased with efforts made.