The picture shows a history of the progression of a selection of my Eddington Numbers. The graph is trying to visualise whether the numbers are approaching a limit. It seems pretty clear that my daily swim KM number of 9 is not going to advance much if at all and my run miles number of 26 will take some cracking.

These numbers are not a training aid, though sometimes they help get me out the door. The are just fun (for me). I love chasing them. I find the fact the more you chase them the harder they get quite fascinating. This year I started out with a few Eddington Goals. In no particular order

Hit 130 Bike miles. This I did but now progression is getting really hard fought with it require 10 rides of 131 miles or more to hit 131. To prevent the ones after that getting even hard some of these 10 rides need to be a lot more.

The other two I failed on. Firstly hitting 120km daily bike KMs for the year which would have been a best annual performance. I decided on KM as my mile record of 101 for the year seems still unattainable. I managed 98 KM and will be chasing that again this year. The other one was 200 daily minutes but I only got to 167. This year lets try for 210 which will be a record. That requires four 3.5hr days for most weeks of the year. I felt I was reasonably on track through to Ironman Wales but then the boughts of sickness just knocked me for six. Without them I may have been close enough to these goals for them to get me out the door in the run up to christmas.

SWIM

Swimming highlights why Eddington numbers are just fun and provide limited insight in to performance. If you look at my annual figures it would seem in general I am down on previous years. Few hours few miles, less consistency but despite this I am swimming better than I ever have. Two numbers give an insight – the weekly 47 minutes shows that there were only 4 weeks off swimming. Then there’s the daily watts figure, though I’ve only been tracking this for a full two years (so the 2010 figure tells little) it shows that my wattage when training is higher. Though my outright volume is less virtually all my swimming now is in a very good environment resulting in more hard work done.

For next year I would like to see a weekly KM number a bit higher. It always feels that getting to 16 shouldn’t be an issue but it’s not that easy having attained it only once (17 in 2009),

Bike

This is where it all began. Eddington devised this number around number of miles ridden in a day and this is the number that I’m most interested in. This year I advance it by two to 130. Every year I’ve moved it forward and will continue to do so as long as I can. This is getting tough now and I must admit to my mind moving to tactics. It means next year I really need to work to put some rides out there but ensure I don’t stretch it to 132 ! Certain other numbers are now starting to get interesting –

Bike Daily KM is 192 – I’d like to see that at 200

Bike Weekly KM (289) and Miles (230) are now getting tougher but getting to 300 and 250 respectively would be nice

Ascent has only been tracked recently and I think there’s a good few years before thats of interest. It’s quite tricky to do a ride round here without getting at least 500m of ascent.

Run

I so wanted to move my run weekly miles on but didn’t manage it. I did how ever get closer as finally I did a week of over 64 miles. First time since my surgery and was a really boost. Hoping next year I will get some consistency at that sort of level and see this number finally move on. The daily numbers are tricky as they’ve hit a natural high at marathon distance. I did manage one run over over distance to move it closer but it’s really a multi year task to move it forward at all. I really need to get back in to fell running to have any hope.

Total

My daily minutes number is still ahead of weekly minutes but that will probably not last the year. The daily number however is heading the way of my daily bike miles, it probably won’t be long before it’s difficult to move it on. It stands at 439 which means I done 439 days of 7hrs19 or more and I need 5 days of 7hrs20 to move it one. This number is already seeing my tack on the odd KM here and there on the bike just to get an extra few minutes.

Gym

Again for completeness. Not a year for going to gym – going a measly once. At least it was over an hour. Unless my house mate gets me in to doing squats I don’t see me venturing to the gym this year.