I have no idea whether this was a good month or a bad month...either way, it’s over.

My mileage came way down this month from January. I only ran 146.72 miles in 17:32:16 this month. To some extent I expected the cutback; over the 4 years that I’ve been logging my running I’ve only averaged 106 miles in February. 146.72 miles is about 10 miles over my average monthly mileage from 2012 but down 58 miles from January.

The cutback from January has a couple of reasons:

1. There are 3 fewer days in February than January
2. I replaced 2x long runs with races.
3. I lost a long run and a tempo run to a 6am Saturday to 6pm Sunday flight + cab trip from Boston, MA to Suwon, Korea.
4. While in Korea, I had to skip a run and abort 2x other runs at <3 miles thanks to dehydration and GI issues.
5. There was a blizzard which shortened a couple runs.
6. And if you're wondering about my last run of the month...that one taught me that if you're at all lactose in tolerant, don't eat a big bowl of chowder in your work's cafeteria just because it's the only thing left when you finally get out of the lab...I will not go into any more detail...

All these are just excuses though; I only ran 19 of 28 days this month.

Track Work

The only bright spot this month (other than the 2 PRs) was my track work. I had 3x workouts (lost one to the Korea trip) which I never even would have thought of attempting last fall when I ran my 3:17:30 marathon PR. I had a 3x Mile at 5:24 (5:26-5:22) + 6x 400m at 1:17 (1:19-1:14) night, a 10x 800m at 2:38 (2:39-2:35) night and a 16x 400m at 1:17 (1:21-1:12) night. That 10x 800m night probably was the biggest reason why I felt strong all the way though Jones. 

Races

I ran a 15km and a 10 Miler this month. At the 15km I managed to run it a second per mile faster than my 10km PR from 2012 and then at the 10 Miler a few weeks later I was another 2 seconds faster than I was at the 15k. Both races were quite hilly so I’m a little worried about how I’ll be able to manage on the flattish course in New Bedford; I don’t lose a lot on the up hills and can pick it way up on the down hills.

So in summary:

I survived a rough month and made it through two pretty good tune-up races. I didn’t do any runs over 15 miles this month so that’s going to need to be fixed in March. My goals for March are:

1. Get long run up >18 miles.
2. Get MP run up >10 miles.
3. Stay consistent on the track.
4. Complete all 4 planned hill workouts on Park St.
5. Run <1:21:00 at the New Bedford Half Marathon.

May your training miles be ever hilly and may all your races have free beer!