About Me

United Kingdom
A runner now for 17 years, started short then moved up to marathons. The last couple of years has seen the transition to ultras. The start of this blog begins with the Juneathon Challenge.

Tuesday, 1 January 2013

Janathon 2013 Day 1 - It's that time again



Well I suppose it's time to start blogging again. I had started last year with the promise of more but this lasted for the duration of Janathon and then abruptly stopped! What turned out to be a brilliant year of running, which included the following highlights:

  • The continuing of the runstreak to 580 days
  • A total of 3,003 miles run
  • A new PB of 2:58 for the marathon 

All the above was left undocumented, which on reflection was a failing on my part. I definitely plan to do better this year (we shall see!).

Throughout the runstreak I am always on the lookout to mark significant milestones with an appropriate distance to match the day/date (eg: On Day 555 I ran 3x5 milers and on 20/12/2012, a 20min 12sec run). What could I do for the 1st run in 2013? 20.13 miles - maybe, after having a lie in I decided on a shorter distance of 13.20 miles. A shade over a half marathon and a play on the year digits.

So with a half marathon distance to run, it was out the door at 9:30 the same time as my wife went out walking for what would see her walk 5 miles. With a visit to the mother-in-laws in the afternoon for a New Years Day buffet we agreed I would finish my run at Costa and meet for coffee and cake there.

The run promised to be a nice 'steady' effort (followers of mine on Twitter will have become used to my run classifications - also known as the Fletchscale and my definition of steady may not match everyone's idea of the word!). A steady run ensued out along the muddy and in parts very waterlogged country lanes. I think in all my years running this is the most water I have seen even in areas that usually stay very dry. The planned route is a 10 mile loop so would need the detour out towards Chelford down a previously closed lane due to flooding. Fortunately the lane was water free and enabled a nice run down towards half distance.

The weather continued switching between sun and light rain and on the route back into Knutsford saw a steady headwind. On the last mile or so in to town saw the remnants of the previous nights activities which included a pair of stiletto shoes hanging on a fence and a cumberband discarded in a hedge! A final zig zagging round the town saw the planned run of 13.20 miles reached in an average pace of 7:17.

For this year's Janathon I am going to include a link to the Garmin Connect map and stats from my Garmin Forerunner 410 watch. This was a very kind gift from my boss on my completion of 1 year on the runstreak which was achieved on 31st May last year.

Stats
Runstreak: Day 581
Distance: 13.20 miles
Time: 1:36:14
Janathon Total Distance: 13.20 miles

4 comments:

  1. My money is on you again...how long the blog streak?!

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    1. Thanks Kevin, I promise to keep the blog going for longer than January!!

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  2. Well done Andrew - nice to see you back blogging. Good luck with the rest of Janathon

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    1. Thanks very much, I hope to do better on the blogging front this year!

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