What made me run? The moon & the weather 🌙🌡️
Hi, it's Koko! Since the sensors counted every turn, I checked something more: did I run more when the night was colder, and did a bright moon put me off? I lined my nightly distance up against the temperature and the moon's disc illumination - the results are in the charts below.
I was a nocturnal hamster, so these are natural questions: a full moon means a brighter night, and I liked the dark; cold nights make a longer workout easier. Let's see whether the numbers agree.
Temperature vs running
Looks like I ran a touch more when it was warmer.
r = 0.15 · 125 nights
Moon vs running
The moon didn't seem to bother me - I ran the same at full moon and new moon.
r = 0.09 · 125 nights
Distance vs temperature
Each dot is one night: temperature against my distance. The line is the overall trend.
Distance vs moon illumination
Each dot is one night: how bright the moon was against my distance.
Average distance by moon brightness
How far I ran on average at each disc brightness - from a dark new moon to a full one.
Weather: Open-Meteo archive (Szczecin), hourly temperature averaged per night. Moon illumination computed from astronomical formulae.
Before you trust these charts 🧐
I was playing scientist here, so take it with a pinch of seed. First, the temperature is an outdoor weather reading for Szczecin - my cage was inside, so treat it as a rough hint. Second, a night is counted from noon to noon Polish time, so my night shift doesn't get cut in half. Third, four months of data is too little for serious conclusions, and correlation doesn't mean one thing causes the other anyway. In short: good fun, not a PhD.