Clocking up 2,015k in 2015

It is an odd kind of a cyber-chase where satellites in the heavens check our progress and we send each other little tweets now and again to keep tabs on progress.

Graham, Graham Denney that is, is a running fund-raiser for Pendleside Hospice and sets himself an annual challenge.

This year he set out to run 2015k in 2015. Walks are allowed, but they have to be more than 5k and so a quick trip to the local doesn’t count.

Amassing 2015k in a year doesn’t sound too bad until you sit and think about it.

It means committing to 5.5k each and every day for a whole year.

It means if you are ill you have a lot of catching up to do.

It means if you go on holiday you will be shedding those pounds gained by putting in some hard miles on your return.

And it means that when life gets in the way of training, you know there will have to be some payback at some stage.

The other Wednesday saw us reach the quarter point in the year.

Target: 503.75k.

Result: Both of us had our first significant “tick” of the year.

Graham is a completely different runner to me. He does mad things like marathons and I will be trying to spot him on my TV screen when he pounds the streets of London at the end of the month.

Graham deserves great support as he has set himself a big fund-raising target for the year whereas I am just doing it for fun!

At the time of writing I had another 1,489.4k of running and walking to look forward to and had brought the average required per day down to a little over 5.4k.

It is a great challenge that is keeping my mind on the game and strengthening my legs for some further challenges ahead.

Perhaps one of them will be 2016k in 2016 - a whole extra day to do one extra kilometre ... sounds easy, doesn’t it?