2010 kilometers in the year 2010, done! Not quite realizing yet that the project is finally done. A few days without running will be very welcome, my legs are quite tired and beat up after the brutal ending, 217 kilometers in December. I´m sure I couldn´t have done that many kilometers in one month in the beginning of the year, actually 120 kilometers felt really heavy back in January. I´m quite pleased that I managed to keep the average speed over 10 km/h or under 6.00 minutes per kilometer.

2010 divided into months:

February and November were cut a bit short due to some flu, otherwise there hasn´t been any big problems. The soles of my feet were really sore and every run included some pain. Luckily the pain wen´t away and I was able to finish the year ok.

Some stats:

Longest run of this project: 33 km (Pirkan hölkkä)
Kilometers per calendar-day: 5.5 kilometers
Fastest month: June 10.7 km/h
Most kilometers in one month: December 216.86 km
Best week: 29.11-5.12, 70.27 km

In a way it´s a bit sad that the project is ended now, it´s been a great motivator. The best moments of this project definetly include Espoo Rantamaraton 1/2-marathon, I´m still very pleased with the finishing time 1:43:23. Also realizing at the end of november that I´m able to finish without any crazy runs felt really good. The low points were the in the beginning when the amount of kilometers to go felt monstrous. The painful period in the fall when the soles of my feet hurt non-stop was also quite hard. Thanks to Isa for keeping the spirit up and motivating me to keep up the runnning.

Next year will be more about speed than brute distance, I´ll try to take more intervals in to my training. Also running my first marathon is a target for 2011, and finishing under 4 hours. The half distance would be great to push into the sub 1.40 but that really needs some work.

Last run of the project, quite heavy conditions with about 20 centimeters of soft snow. Average pace 6.23 minutes per kilometer.

Quick evening run around Myllypuro and Viikki. Average pace 5.48 minutes per kilometer. The next run will most likely be the last run this year and the last run in this project, 9.15 kilometers remaining, yeah!

Evening run around Kivikko, -10 degrees. Trails in quite good condition.

Some problems with my Garmin yesterday. The data seemed to be corrupt and every time I tried to upload the file the upload failed. The “AltitudeMeters” node seemed to contain some data that was not valid to the uploader. The invalid values were negative, I solved it by opening the .TCX file and search/replacing the negative values with positive values. Voila, the file could be uploaded without problems. Some error handling could be a nice addition to the upload, sparing the user from guessing where in the 16000+ line file there is some invalid data :)

Long evening run in about -9 degrees. Trails mostly plowed and in ok condition. Average pace 6.23 minutes per kilometer and the average pace a low 140 after a few days of relaxing and resting over the christmas holidays. Fastest kilometer: 5.31 minutes.

Short run before a small Christmas break in running. A crisp -20 degrees makes this one of the coldest runs in this project. Average pace 6.03 minutes per kilometer. 49 kilometers left to go, whoa!

Evening run around Pihlajanmäki and Kivikko. Quite chilly, -14 degrees. Average pace 6.21 minutes per kilometer.

Quick evening run, good speed, average pace 5.45 minutes per kilometer.

Long evening run around east Helsinki. Almost all roads were ploved nicely and the running wasn´t too heavy. 5K splits: 29.58, 31.16, 32.46, 33.16. Average pace 6.22 minutes per kilometer.