2017 definitely has started rolling now, with the weeks picking up speed as they go past.    It’s been a pretty good month from a training point of view, right up to the last week.

Running

Plenty of running happening this month in line with my training plan, right up to the last week.  After a final ‘easy’ 15k run on the 24th, which for the last few k felt very hard indeed (despite being being quite low on the HR rate)  I woke up the next morning with some sort of bug.  Hot and cold, and aches and pains all over.   I felt better the next day on Saturday, but just wiped out meaning I missed my half marathon paced run, and just haven’t yet really recovered.   The most annoying thing really was that I was 16k off finishing the February Strava distance challenge 🙁

I feel like I might be able to attempt to run tomorrow and see if I can get my training back on track.

Strava badge-wise, here they are:

Very happy to have the climbing badge again. My 15k hilly slow run is great for racking up the metres climbed giving me just enough each month. I’m really hoping this will pay off for the Round Sheffield Run in Spring!
Still smarting on missing out on the 200km badge, but they are only pixels 😉

Stand out run of the month?  (Ignoring the new 5k PB which I’ve posted about elsewhere) This one:

Lots of detail in the Strava description if you click through, but it was a tempo run, which somehow included my 2nd fastest 10k run! Woot! That’s a good sign for the training so far.

Climbing

Despite missing a couple of sessions this month due to being poorly, I’m pretty happy with how I’ve climbed.  A new Wasp Circuit has gone up and I’ve knocked half of them off already, and I’ve 2-3 of the current Black and Yellow circuits remaining.  Sadly I suspect the black will have been reset this week, meaning I’ve missed the chance to finish it, but realistically I’m not sure that was likely.  Also, I’m pretty sure that one of the blacks was causing a finger injury.  It involved a match and swapping hands on a big “handle” under a skip.  The pressure of my weight through one hand on the other hand was causing a sore end knuckle on my left index finger so I’d been avoiding it.

We’d pencilled in a weekend climb this month, which (as usual) was rained off :/.  Perhaps we’ll have some nicer weather this month?