A thousand kilometres so far in 2012

A fresh dump of snow overnight turned the start of February 29 into a sparkling white experience. By midday the rising temperature was quickly melting the winter landscape away. By the time I headed out for today's 25K run, the roads were mostly clear, though many sidewalks weren't.

As the sun lit up the surrounding snow-covered mountains during my run from Valleycliffe to Brackendale, and back, it was a spectacular day to finish the first two months of training in 2012.

I have spent the past two months running more than ever. And I have kept a daily record; in the first 60 days of this year I covered 1,017 kilometres.

I ran 498K in the month of January, followed by 519K in the month of February (including today's 25K). That's an average of 16.95K a day.

With the exception of January 14, I have run every day so far this year. Taking that rest day into account, I have done an average of 17.2K on each of the 59 days I did run in 2012.

Some of my sessions have been challenging, but I have enjoyed the vast majority of them. My body has surprised me more than once, though most quantifiably in the First Half Marathon on February 12, where I ran a personal record of 46 seconds for the 21.1K distance to finish in 87:27.

It was 2 minutes and 17 seconds faster than I completed the same race, on the same course, a year earlier.

The First Half was also the provincial road running half marathon championship and, as it turned out, I won the F40-44 age group (for these results they use the gun time rather than the net time, hence the 4-second difference).

Great rewards for training that I am enjoying very much.