This entry was not planned but Damian, a fella at our Tri club posted up on one of our forums that I’d stumbled across the Eddington number after I mentioned I’d done 100 miles on more than 100 days in 2007.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Stanley_Eddington#Eddington_number_.28cycling.29

http://bubl.ac.uk/org/tacit/tac/tac64/tac64hilleddi.htm

Your Eddington Number is the highest number where you’ve exceeded that on at least that number of days. In the context of cycling an Eddington Number of 80 would mean you’ve done 80 or more miles on at least 80 days.

This just sparks (massively) that part of me that loves to chase my only little ‘bests’ – it’s whats always driven me to see how far I could run in the hills, how far I could ride in a day or week but this adds that whole level of consistency  to it as well.

So… it immediately prompted me to find out my Eddington numbers. Above I’ve provided the following Eddington like numbers:

Daily numbers – maximum X where I’ve done X or more in X days

Weekly numbers – maximum Y where I’ve done Y or more in Y weeks.

I’ve provided my best efforts in a year and my life to date values (well – values since i’ve kept a training diary – ie 5 years).

I can say I’m pretty pleased with my bike Eddington number – 101 for a year and 121 for life to date. To improve both of those next year would be a good target. Improving the 121 will be easier than improving the 101 though. I’ve managed 122 miles on 117 occasions so if next I manage 5 122+ mile rides I’ll push that figure on. You can see how this can be addictive or put more positively … motivational.

So in the context of my recent posts lets take a look at those figures:

Swim – best ever this year and thats reflected in this being my best weekly Ed number

Bike – I’ve never biked more strongly than in 2007 and just look at the consistency there – more than 50 miles for 50 weeks and a daily Ed number of 101.

Run – My last entry commented on how 2005 was far and away my best year of running. Look – 38 weeks exceeding 38 miles. This year I ran terribly but still managed my best daily Ed number. Does this mean the big days don’t really count as much as consistent underlying volume ? I think so.

Hours – my next blog entry will analyse this more. But 2007 clearly has the best Ed numbers – that year I had probably my best ever Ironman Performance – Lanzarote.

Food for thought. It also means I’ve not done the sorting out I need to do for my departure and now I’m going to end up amending my training diary to easily track this…. I really must get to my sorting out.