I lost the plot. I mean, we went to Japan and I while there I did (but did not log here) two runs, including an amazing little side quest to check out a Park Run in Futakotamagawa on our first weekend, and a half lap of Disneyland Tokyo on our last weekend.

Then we came back and I ran and swam, but a lot of that was inside because (a) the pool is inside and more importantly (b) winter arrived with a vengeance and it got freaking cold, snowy and icy all at the same time so I’ve been on the indoor track wrestling with a watch that can’t quite figure out my pace anymore (I suspect because I turned it on while riding the bullet train in Japan and clocked a “run” at 275kph and mussed up the calculations. Sigh.)

Alas, the new year arrived and it is time once again to set some goals, the first one being about dutifully tracking my fitness here again, so, here it all restarts.

My first run of 2026 was a bit of a sad sack. Used to be that the annual “resolution run” brought us out on January first for a chilly 5k race with a pancake breakfast at the end.  They haven’t done that in a few years now, tho, and it was too damn chilly and slippery to be out on the trails this year anyways, so I stuck with my Sunday run schedule a few days later and did a slog of a 5k (with the vague error induced by lacking actual GPS) on the indoor track. Happy new yeah, huh?

Tuesday evening I decided that I would start to get back into my pool routine for the new year. The roads have been decidedly icy which is a pain not just for running traction, but driving traction, so just getting to the pool is an exercise.  But it turns out that half the city had decide to go to the pool on Tuesday evening along with me. Long story short: fewer evening swims if possible.

I went to the gym for some low impact cycling once later on in the week and we had an outdoor sledding party (which involved lots of hills, obviously) but I didn’t actually run again until Sunday morning. The weather had warmed considerably so we did nine klicks on the city paths which were a bit snowy but waaaaay better than the streets and suburban sidewalks which were basically oatmeal.

Monday I logged 600m in the pool, but it was a mixed victory given that I forgot my towel at home and felt like a bit of doofus air-drying with my feet in the hot tub afterwards. Okay, it wasn’t all bad.