// Personal website of Chris Smith

My interests » Fitness

I’ve recently been on a bit of a fitness kick. It started out with a lot of walking, but as the walks got longer and longer I ran out of new places to walk, and it started feeling like I was getting diminishing returns given how long I was spending. So I started doing a bit of running. Then I also started cycling. Now I’ve got the somewhat crazy idea of running a marathon before I turn 40. This page is a collection of bits and pieces related to my fitness journey. It’ll probably evolve over time.

Here’s a breakdown of my recent activity:

Walking

I have a separate page for walking:

Initially I was logging every walk, no matter how deliberate or how far. These days I tend to only long when I’m going out to intentionally walk for exercise, rather than just popping to the shops or something.

Running

I ran my first 5k in early September, and am now aiming for a 10k before Christmas, then a half marathon next May, and a full marathon next October:

I followed a modified couch-to-5k plan to get to 5k. The normal plan stops at half an hour, but at my current comfortable pace I’ll be running for more like 40 minutes to cover 5k, so I bumped the numbers a bit. After that I started doing my own training plans modelled after Hal Higdon’s. My longest run so far:

I’m mostly aiming for speed not distance, but I still enjoy tracking my PBs:

Cycling

Cycling is mostly a leisure and cross-training option for me, but I’m aiming to increase my distance to make it viable to cycle to visit friends without relying on cars or trains. It’s also a great excuse to hit up coffee shops.

I mostly just cycle at whatever pace feels right, but like with running I enjoy seeing my PBs: