The Road goes ever on and on; Down from the door where it began;
Now far ahead the Road has gone; And I must follow, if I can;
Pursuing it with eager feet; Until it joins some larger way;
Where many paths and errands met; And whither then? I cannot say.

[JRR Tolkien, Lord of the Rings]

Monday 31 December 2012

The Gratuitous Graphs of the Stats of 2012

It’s that time of year when I feel the need to roll out some graphs illustrating my walking activities for the year just gone. Alas, they don’t make for pleasing reading this year, although I have no-one but myself to blame for my laziness during the second half of the year.

In 2011 I walked 1892 miles, the year before 1813; I had no illusions that I would achieve the same this year, but did start the year with 1500 miles in mind. As it went, I just about stumbled over the 1200 mile mark (by which I mean that I’ve just been out for a walk in the dark having looked at the stats and having noticed that I was 3 miles short!).

My walking always drops during the second half of the year, but not usually this much:

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Our mileage spiked in June (when we were on the Pacific Crest Trail), and accordingly so did our ascent:image

Interestingly (to me, even if to no-one else!) June wasn’t the month in which we achieved our highest ‘average ascent per mile’:

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I haven’t done a ‘miles per shoe’ graph this year (1000 miles of the total were walked in Inov8 Terrocs though, if you’re interested…), but the weather graph makes pleasing viewing, considering how wet this year has been:

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Without any manipulation of the numbers, exactly 75% of my walks have been in dry weather, with 51% being in the sunshine. It did help that in June, when the UK received 200% more than its average rainfall, we were in California where the sun where the sun was obscured by a cloud once in the whole month.

One last one – and it’s a bit of a messy one. This is how 2012 lines up with the previous years, back to 2006:

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Onwards to 2013!

3 comments:

  1. I have to confess, this is one of the best bits for me, I love, love, love your graphs! The imagination and dedication is admirable.
    (Gush)
    Apart from all that, they're looking good and I just don't have the energy to do likewise (but at least I've managed two years in a row to keep my spreadsheets up to date)
    All the best for 2013 and see you somewhere in Scotland!

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  2. Stand by for more graphs. TGOC ones coming next :-)

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  3. I wondered about miles per banana... I always seem to have a banana

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