2013 - Week 4 Graph

Four weeks into the year, it's now time to have a look at the graph. Since I'll be going into battle with 2012 for the next few months, I'll ignore all the other years for now. Hopefully it will be July before I have to start plotting when 1998 is suddenly looming at my shoulder again.

After a great start in weeks 1 and 2 established a lead of 51.2 miles, the rotten weather hauled me back in and I've been overtaken already.

Those figures then after four weeks:

2013 - 347.5
2012 - 362.4
1998 - 228.5

So I lost the lead after week 3 and now have a deficit on last year of 14.9 miles. To win back the lead over the next four weeks I'll need to add 476 miles exactly at an average of 119 per week.

As I mentioned in the previous entry, last year's mild winter allowed me to set the bar unseasonably high. Looking back at previous years in the last decade, particularly post-2006 when I stepped up the cycling after a series of fallow years, the averages for the first two wintry months of the year remained much of a muchness:

After 4 weeks
2007 - 52.6 miles
2008 - 56.8 miles
2009 - 59.45 miles
2010 - 26.17 miles
2011 - 56.82 miles

After 6 weeks
2007 - 68.8 miles
2008 - 66.4 miles
2009 - 72.1 miles
2010 - 52.75 miles
2011 - 67.26 miles

After 8 weeks
2007 - 64.3 miles
2008 - 69.2 miles
2009 - 79.3 miles
2010 - 67.23 miles
2011 - 76.6 miles

I'm sure the weather wasn't all that bad at the time. What changed in 2012 was the addition of the mental determination to keep the great run going that the weather had allowed me to start.