It seems to have absolutely flown by. I've been busy with work, England won the Ashes series down under and Charlton removed Phil Parkinson as manager and replaced him with Chris Powell. Otherwise it has been a fairly unremarkable month, but nevertheless it's gone by in a flash and its already time for a quick report on my Project Five O progress. Cue the music.
It's been an encouraging start. I've gradually built up my distance each week reaching a total of 55 miles for the month. My times are significantly faster than at the same point last year, and so far I've encountered no injury worries at all, other than an occasional twinge in my left knee. I feel confident now to crank up the mileage during February in preparation for the Bath Half Marathon on 6th March. Weight-wise I'm back now to my pre-Christmas level (slightly under in fact) and I'm starting to feel the benefit of this.
I use a fantastic iphone app called Runkeeper to track my progress. Details of a run can either be input manually, which is useful for my treadmill runs, or it can use GPS to track my progress around a route. Runkeeper can also be used to measure out a route in advance.
Data from the iphone is transferred automatically to the Runkeeper website, where all sorts of useful information about the performance is available including the number of calories burned. A really motivational feature its facility to plot progress over time. Here is the bar chart showing my weekly mileage totals for January:
Further motivation is provided by the email alert facility. This sends out a 'well done' message every time a new best is achieved. This might be the longest individual run, best weekly or monthly total, fastest average pace on a run or the most calories burned. It's clever stuff!
Here's hoping for an even fitter and faster February.
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