I’ve found myself with a free relaxed morning and given it’s getting towards the end of the year it’s time to start reviewing training and discussing plans / changes for next year. The starting point for this is Eddington numbers. I discovered this concept last year and discussed it in this entry. I must admit this little stat REALLY appeals to me. I just love it and it really helps motivate me. I just have to be careful to ensure it motivates at the right time since it’s a clear push to do more. In fact, some of the time I reckon I could motivate myself for the rest of my life just chasing Eddington Numbers. Could I get to 500 for weekly bike miles or 200 for daily ?

Firstly, why do I have a free morning? It’s because I felt sooo tired this morning I knocked the squad swim on the head. Actually, I got up and ready but our promised lift slept in after a Christmas party. This was a blessing as I went back to bed and slept like a log for a further two hours. Decided to move the swim and gym to Sunday and have an easy morning to make the most of my run. Yesterday was a great days training. Did a solid 2 hour squad swim. Then got out to do a testing long ride. I wanted to check out my recovery. Not sure of the validity in what I did but it was fun and I feel great. I headed out on the gorges route – a classic local ride running around the base of the Southern Alps. It’s mostly flat with a rolling section in the middle. This would get me to the Blue Duck (for a stop) and the far end of the Long Bays Route – a hilly ride round the Port Hills with 2 decent hills. My aim was to ride long and push it based on feel. After an hour I got in to my rhythm and felt strong on the flats, pushing at close to 38 km/h into the slight headwind on the return. Got to the Blue Duck in bang on 5 hours for 160 km. I needed the Carrot Cake (not as good as Ali’s though) and bowl of flat white. The head wind for the return around the bays was super strong. I went steady up the hills and all the aching in the legs from the race had gone. I managed to stay in the saddle in and in the big chain ring up Evans Pass. 209 km in 7 hours and I was pretty tired. Had one of those great nights sleep that you only get when you are really REALLY tired.

So time for the Eddington Review. In the picture above the bold numbers are improvements I’ve made this year.

An Eddington number is a number X where you’ve achieved some goal X at least X times. For example – daily bike mileage Eddington number of 50 would mean I’ve ridden at least 50 miles on 50 occasions. I track both daily and weekly numbers together with my number for Life to Date and my numbers for a given calendar year. If it’s not clear ask questions via comments and I will try and explain.

I had big ambitions to improve on numerous fronts but having 3 months completely out of the game made that tricky.

SWIM

Had some progress here despite the time out from the pool. I’ve managed much more consistent swimming and this is reflected in not only increasing my weekly number to 22km but also getting a new best annual weekly of 17km. I think  next year I should be able to beat this 17 again.

BIKE

Great years riding. Despite the non riding period I done more riding than 2008. My weekly number is now 188 though it will be several years before this becomes a challenging number to beat. Even in a relatively easy week getting 200 miles is normal. I’ve pushed on my daily number to 124. A small increase and reflects less focus on monster big rides. This is largely due to not only being careful about my foot but also a change in approach to more interval based work. I will continue doing BIG rides once in a while as I enjoy them. Moving this number on is now a real challenge. To get 125 I need to do 5 rides of 125 or more miles. To get to 130, 22 rides of 130 or more and to get to 150, 100 rides of 150 or more. This one is a life long challenge.

My annual daily number of 81 is pretty pleasing and will probably be 83 or 84 by the end of the year. It appears close to beating the 101 of 2007 but wasn’t really as I need a further 50 rides of 102 or more to beat that. I was keen to take this on and go for a number of 112 in a year. I’d still love to but for next year merely beating the 101 would be nice rather than chasing 112.

This year also went well for the weekly bike miles. I hit 42 which considering I had 7 weeks with no cycling is quite remarkable. My best is 50 and the maximum this could ever be is 52. It would be nice to beat it but it’s surprisingly hard largely because of the weeks immediately after a race. For instance after Hawaii we tend to holiday and the bike is packed so tricky to get any miles done. Most weeks it’s easy but to beat 50 requires focus on the few tough weeks of the year. Given how much better I’ve recovered from Busselton having ridden 196  miles the week after I will be trying for more easy riding the following week. You never know this one may fall next year. Getting to 52 would be nice because I can then stop ‘worrying’ about it.;o)

RUN

I was surprised to see I’d made one improvement. Not increased the Eddington number but have increased the count on my daily. I’ve now done 40 runs of 26 miles or more. Improving that figure now, given my foot, may never happen. I need 10 runs of 27 or more miles to improve it. I guess if I take up Fell Running again it may fall. Over the next year my run focus will be more on making the runs I do at a good pace / intervals. So unlikely to do monster mileage. My bigger weeks may allow me to move the weekly figure to 66. Looking back at my running over the years the big weeks has tended to result in much bigger swings in mileage. My hope is to get consistency around the 40 miles per week mark. As such I’ll be targetting the annual weekly record of 38 from 2005. Funnily enough this is back when I was running REALLY well.

HOURS

My weekly hours has moved on to 42.8. Had to move to tenths of an hour as it was proving too big a step incrementing by full hours. I’d love to get this to 50 but as thats 34 weeks of 50 away it’s not going to happen next year. My daily Eddington number is 11 and I’ve increased the count by 1 to 17. Moving this to 12 will take 6 days of 12 or more hours which given less focus on really long bike rides is unlikely to happen next year. I’ve only ever once done 13 or more hours so 12 may be the limit of this number.

Will look to review each discipline before the end of the year.