February Rundown and Half thoughts

February was all about building up the long runs. In the first 3 weeks of the month I ran 12, 14 and 16 miles, which was looking good until I then got a cold. So my last long run was just 10 miles, as I wasn't feeling up to 18.

I also started experimenting with slower paces runs, along with hill, speed and tempo shorter runs. I'm just really taking various training programmes and mucking about with them to make up something that suits me - it might work, it might not.

I ran 3 (slow) Parkruns, only managed 1 bike ride, and dropped a few strength sessions during the half term holiday. Apart from getting a cold though, it was a pretty good month.

Ran - 17x = 104.2 miles
Cycled - 1x = 11.4 miles
Strength Training - 5x
Stretches - Most days

This was only my second ever month of running over 100 miles! The other one was April 2010 when I ran 134 miles in marathon training.

Today is 1st of March and at last I've got my first race of this year coming up! On Sunday I'll be doing the Eastbourne Half Marathon which I also did last year. It's my PB for that distance, although it's not an easy course - there's a huge hill between miles 3 and 4 which really annoyed me last year, but then it's downhill for a bit, and flat for most of the race. At least this time I know what to expect.


I surprised myself last year by running 1h58m - my only sub-2 Half as yet - but I've got no idea what to expect this time. My Marathon in April is my main race goal, so this is part of the training. However, I know that once I'm there I'll want to get a good time. I'm hoping to get around 2 hours, preferably just under.


I got my race number yesterday in the post. I like it! It could even be my time - 1hour 61 minutes 6 seconds! I think it's at least a sign of luck though to have a number that I could choose to wear upside down.