My slow start to the year continues.

After a great few days in Little Langdale with old friends at the start of the month, training continued in the same vein as January, struggling to just keep ticking over. But now at last, the winter bug or series of bugs I’ve had for the last three months seem finally to be relaxing their grip on my lungs. I’ve managed some runs with longer (1km ish) bursts above 5km pace, and managed to start this last week with a solid 13km run at 4:03/km on a chunk of the Basingstoke Half Marathon course.

Biking has been barely ticking over though, with a single solitary road ride, two fun mtb outings requiring hosing self and bike down, and a few stints on the spin bike. I still haven’t swum a stroke this year either.

Looking on the bright side again, a few revision sessions with Nic have reawakened my interest in doing some regular resistance workouts, and I think I’ve got a grip on both the strength/power sets and her core strength and flexibility (injury prevention!) programmes. I’m really going to miss PT sessions with Nic, who is starting maternity leave in March.

I’ve also started at a weekly beginners’ yoga class with Em’s teacher, Maria Webster, which I hope will provide another balance to training stress (and all the rest…).

I feel like I’m 6 weeks or more behind where I hoped to be, but I’m going to start March more positive than I’ve felt in a while. I’m still wondering about going along to the Winchester Duathlon to catch up with the Try Tri Events crew, but I’m feeling so rusty still that I might even wait a bit longer before racing again.

Finally, here’s the comparison between this month’s training, last month, and this month last year.

(Figures in parentheses include hill walking! Plenty of work for quads and calves, but not very aerobic.)