March Self Locomotion Update

1000 miles is a really long way, folks.  March was our best month yet, but we still didn't manage a 1000 mile pace.  (Not that January and February were all that impressive of months to beat.)  The weather was warmer, particularly the week where we had multiple days in the 80s.  Since then we've had a little snow and have cooled back off into typical 40s and 50s.  With the warmer weather, we'll be able to get out more consistently, particularly Shannon and the girls on walks.  For me, I've still been playing a lot of basketball, which helps toward our goal, but not nearly as much as 2 hours of running would.  As the year goes on, I may be forced to cut back on basketball to boost some running numbers.  I've also been doing some major work on my running stride and form.  I'll write more about that another day, but the end result is that I've had to cut my distance way down when I run.  But, when your run is only 10 minutes long, it's a lot easier to squeeze into the day!

The numbers:
March total: 73.66mi
Total through 3/31/12: 173.43mi
March pace: 870mi/yr
Pace YTD: 698mi/yr
Current Deficit: 72.47mi


The usual graph:

This graph makes it hard to tell that March really was significantly better than February.  So rather than showing progress vs the goal, here's a graph of the gap between the two lines.

This makes it much easier to see what our progress has been like.  Our first mistake was to get a quick 20 miles behind before we really got started.  Sickness and cold through the second half of February had a big impact, but then you can see that we held our ground pretty well through March.  It's amazing how far "behind" we get from just a day or two of inactivity.