
Yet another yearly summary of my running activities. It seems, indeed,
that running has now slightly taken precedence over free software
activities in my life and priorities for my free time.
To my fellow free software friends: don't worry, I'm not on my way to
stop investing my time in Debian. It's quite clear that I'm reducing
my involvement, mostly because days only have 24 hours...not because
I'm bored or tired by free software development.
But, certainly, it became an important thing that running currently
has a small priority over Debian nowadays, for me.
So, what happened on that front in 2012 for running bubulle?
I finally managed to run 2900 km during the year, which is over 400km
more than 2011. This is mostly due to the increasing part of running
in my daily commute : a typical work week can now be something like
this:
- Monday morning, leave home with a big bag and clothes for up to 4
work days (including those I'm wearing) plus running clothes (and
shoes).
- Monday evening: come back by running. Either 4km, then 30 minutes
train ride, then 3km more....or "the long version": 10km, then 20
minutes train ride, then 3km more.
- Tuesday: go to work by run+train+run, shower, change clothes, work, come
back by run+train+run
- Wednesday: ditto
- Thursday: let's have a break. I usually work in another facility
where it's less convenient to go by running
- Friday morning: go to work by run+train+run
- Friday evening: come back home with a big bag of dirty clothes
With such an organization, I can end up with weeks where I run up to
50-60 kilometers in 5 days, with peaks that may include 26km in one
*work* day. I also end up having room in trains between the runs, I
wonder why..:-)
And, of course, during week-ends, I spend some parts of my time running
too..:-). Indeed, just like for many drugs, I feel sad during days
where I haven't run at all and it's usually hard for me to spend more
than 2 days without.
Indeed, the longest time period without running, this year, has been 9
days, just after the Caen marathon, in June. Mostly because, at that
time, I reached a moment where training (and believe me, very boring
and hard training) consumed all my motivation.
But these moments are indeed very rare and training is mostly *never*
boring for me. Mostly because I like running in the nature, in
forests, woods, fields, country. Never wearing an MP3 player or any
kind of such device toplay music, but just enjoying the outside,
whether it's raining, winding, sunny hot. Running (particularly my
daily commute) is also the moment where I *think* about my work, my
technical activities, my own life, whatever. I think I even sometimes
translated some software, mentally, while running..:)
Indeed, there have been 205 days in this year where I ran at least
once. Last year was 181 so....drug addiction is increasing.
So, 2900 kilometers. That's about the distance from my place to Moscow
in Russia. 282 hours (11 days18 hours.....9d21h last year). Average
speed: 10,3km/h (10,5km/h last year).
Cumulated height difference: 33,400 meters (27700m last year).
More distance, more time, a bit slower: this is an obvious consequence
of more trail running (which includes more difficulties, such as
running on volcanoes!).
Most active month: November with 331km. Less active month: June with
141km.
This year was also a year of records:
- personal best broken in September by....14 seconds....on half-marathon with
1h37'28" after failing a first time by 20 seconds in March
- personal best broken twice in the two marathons I ran. first in
June, in Caen, after a very hard 8-week training and in
difficult conditions (rain, wind, hard race profile) with 3h38'45".
Then, I managed to run a stunning 3h33'35" in October in Val du Rueil (a small
town in the Seine river valley). That one will be hard to break now.
- longest distance run, with the "80km" Paris Ecotrail run in March,
in 11 hours
- great progress in my other "ultra" race (70km in November) which I
ran in 8h22 instead of 9h15 last year
I ran 10 official races during the year : two
"ultra" races (70km Le Puy-Firminy in November, by night and 80km
Paris Ecotrail in March), two marathons (Caen and Val de Rueil), four
half-marathons and two "short" (less than 30km) trail races.
How about next^W this year? Well, my goals are currently being
secured:
- more trail races than roads races
- Paris 80km Ecotrail again in March. Goal: beat last year's 11 hours
- Le Puy-Firminy 70km again in November. A very nice "small" race
(small by number of participants....but the effort is not small!).
- Mont-Blanc "marathon" in late June. Indeed a 42km trail race in
Chamonix, starting at 1000m, finishing at 1600m, with a peak at 2300m
and 2500m positive vertical gain (1490m negative).
- Another "long" trail race (40-60km) somewhere in April/May
- A "classic" marathon in October/November. Probably somewhere in
France. Maybe La Rochelle. That might be the only classic marathon I run this
year...unless I decide for another challenge like running two
marathons in two consecutive Sundays..:-)
- Do once again my own personal marathon which is just "come back
from work by foot".....which nearly equals the distance of a marathon.
Something I achieved for the first time in September, in about 5 hours
- Maybe try a 6 or 12 hour race (running for 6 or 12 hours...or
more...on a small 1-2km loop). These ones are very friendly ones and
the only races where lame runners like me can run along with the best
ones, not only for the first 100 meters.
All this of course is assuming that no injury comes up (my ankles are
sometimes yelling outbut I'm fortunate enough to not have articulation
problems that many runners have, particularly in knees). We'll see on
January 1st 2014...:-)