Janathon #14 - A marathon and a sprint pt 2

Yesterday I talked mysteriously of second and third targets. Again, these are minor things in the grand scheme of things, but they've been my drivers to get out and run hard (well, hard for me) today. They've been something to aim at, something to be proud of, and something to go "Holy sh*t. I never thought I'd do that." at. And tonight, I've done 'em.

(Author's note: Apologies for the geeky stats-obsessiveness of all of this. I never said I was cool. And Steve and Katy did say they were expecting a maths puzzle after my alliterative efforts last week...)

As we left it yesterday, I'd cleared a marathon over the week - 26.2 miles, 42.16km. Because of the extra distance Hannah and I ran around Kirkstall park, I was actually just above that, sitting at 43.83km. Not a bad haul, for a fat boy who doesn't run. But rather than rest on my laurels of 'having run a marathon in a week',  I'd been sat looking over my stats in the spreadsheet. And a couple of thoughts occurred.

1) Take that 43.83km. Add to that the 2.51km I'll have jog/walked to get home in the morning before work - that gives us 46.34km. Add on the 35km I ran in Week One. That takes us to 81.34km over a fortnight, right? Right.Well, 81.34 isn't a million miles away from 84.32, is it? It's only, what, 2.98? Sounds about right. But what's so special about 84.32? Well.

If I got off my backside after work, and trawled out for a teensy-weensy 2.98km run, say 3km for rounding off purposes, I would have run the equivalent of 2 marathons in a fortnight. Again, yes, this is compound mileage and compound time, but I'm no runner, normally, so this is important for me m'kay? A nice personal acheivement to tick off Week Two of Janathon. But hang on, back to the maths a second, something else occurs...

2) So suppose I'm at my double-marathon-in-a-fortnight point of 84.32km. Take off the Week One tally, that 35. That puts us at 49.32km this week. Hell, if I'm out for a teensy-weensy 2.98km, why not throw in a wee bit more, say, ooh I dunno, 680 metres? That way, we can tick the little box that says for the first time, probably ever, I've run 50km in a week. After all, what's 680m between friends?

And hell, if I'm going out on one of those, why not try and do it fast?

Tonight's tally: 3.86km, 20:06 - giving an average pace of 5:12 min/km.
Added to this morning's 2.51km in 22:54 that's a day tariff of 6.37km at 6:45min/km.

For the rest of the weekly breakdown, see the image below. I'm off for a bath and a beer.

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