Monday 28 February 2011

February 2011 - Training

Hi all another whirl wind month for me, with work busy, Lauren on European adventures, My Birthday, A Christening, Two Races, a decent amount of training and new toys to play with.

So on the training and racing front you will have seen from previous blogs that I PB'd at Great Bentley in the Half Marathon. Then followed that up with a 5k PB at Middlesbrough Parkrun. The next week I managed a 37mile running week.

But the last 8 days of February have bucked the trend and been very poor. Achilles was sore after the 15 mile long run on Sunday and so I took two days off running. I then managed to get out for a couple of short runs to test it out, but should have then kicked on for big miles over the weekend. I was tired, busy and just generally low on energy and motivation and so got out for one shambolic 4mile run. Leaving me with a feeble week of 3 runs and 13 miles.

My lack of running was not offset by a monster cycling week. Again from previous blogs you will see I suffered a puncture which stopped my commuting for the week. I did then successfully fix this with Lukes help on Saturday ready for our Sunday ride. This didn't go great, with Luke feeling really rough after working hard up a hill, so we cut our 20mile ride short and did a 10miler instead. I wasn't too downbeat, I had fixed my first puncture and got out for a ride.

My mood soon darkened when I opened the garage ready to ride home. My front tyre was flat. I knew it was bad news, but I pumped it up anyway and cycled on my way. Half way home I heard the noise of rim on road and so pulled over, tyre flat as a pancake so rang Lauren to come and rescue me. I didn't know to use my CO2 pump so thought the wheel repair would have to wait and so went out for my diabloical 4 mile run.

On my return I was in an even darker place, with a flat tyre and a rubbish run I needed something to go right. So tackled my flat with renewed determination. Finally working out how to use my CO2 pump and successfully removing the old inner tube I was on a roll! In went the new tube, give it a little air, and wow that CO2 is fast! Managed to get the tyre back on in double quick time, then unleashed the full furry of a CO2 cannister inflating the tyre in less than a second. I still have a hard tyre in my kitchen, and I am hoping to put it on successfully tonight and give it a test ride before bed.

I did go for a 5 mile run tonight and felt better than last week, so maybe it was just a temporary blip. On the upside in February I got 2PB's I ran 107 miles and did 113 miles on the bike. So given the circumstances pretty solid. Another interesting trend is I have now run 3 months in a row of 100 miles or more. December 100, January 102, February 107. The breakdown of this months runs was as follows:

0-5 Miles - 7
5-10 Miles - 7
10+ Miles - 3 (Longest of 15.09 Miles)

So aside from one terrible running week I was happy with this months efforts. Will be pushing on next month. Looking for 130+ miles running and 250+ on the bike (punctures allowing). Wish me luck!

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