Week 17 - February Complete

I realised that the first half of February was well ahead of schedule but the continuing Winter weather meant it was an extra challenge to complete my targets. I also wanted to increase my studying.
A quick run mainly on the flat on Monday followed by table tennis league match in the evening had left my left leg complaining. Luckily I didn't mention this to my opponents in the match until after otherwise they may have been able to adjust their game!
Just a five miler on Winter Hill on Tuesday followed by a short walk on Wednesday before I felt fit enough to get a long run in over Winter Hill on Thursday.
This left me needing to complete 22 miles and 1700ft of climb on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I built a 6 mile walk around a trip to the dentist on Friday, heading up towards Two Lads on the side of Winter Hill after Horwich.
Saturday was the National Cross Country Championships at Leeds. Having lived in Leeds for over 8 years, I was quite familiar with Roundhay Park and knew that "Hill 60" would give me some climbing. An excellent run in which I was nine minutes quicker than the last time I ran the Nationals there, six years ago. It was also good to meet up with friends from previous running club, Abbey Runners and my old boss who started me running 25 years ago.
The weather forecast for Sunday was not good- gale force winds. If the weather was decent I would do the Lostock 6 Road Race : if not I would find an alternative means of completing my target. Sunday morning came and no gales, so a jog down to the registration (less than a mile from home) and started off near but not very near the back of the field (the race seems to attract many slower runners - unlike the previous day's XC where I set off quite near the back of 1450 runners, but gradually overtook 200 of them). Quite happy to finish with a slight improvement on the last time I ran it, despite being quite weary for the final two miles. A bit extra on the warm down meant that I had exceeded my target for the month.




More mileage to do in March, more climbing but of course I'd not taken into account that there are three extra days to do it in - so in fact my daily average target is slightly less. I shall just have to ensure I shall exceed it.
With the 32 mile Haworth Hobble (somehow they've lost a mile this year!) and the 25 mile Two Crosses Challenge coming up, that should be a good basis. I also now must put together some back to back walking days with a decent size pack on my back.