April was mostly a good month, but I might have wished for a better final week. I caught some kind of bug and ended up weak and tired, which meant I took six full days off running.

Track&field: Only 7 training sessions this month, a little over half of what I did in March. Clearly, even though I spent one week of April on a training camp with track athletes, my main focus this month was hill training. I recorded 36.5km during track activities, with quite a bit of mileage doubling as road kilometers (during warm-up).

Road and trail running: April continued the trend I set in March: it was a solid month. I clocked 149km on the trails and roads, and with the help of some hills in Lanzarote I managed to record my highest vertical ever in a month, at just over 6000m of elevation.  Over half of the month’s total was achieved during a single week in Lanzarote, where I did a lot of repeats of Penas del Chache, the highpoint of the island.

Cycling: The month started off well, but then during the second half I didn’t touch any bike. Still, I clocked 6h17 in the saddle, and drove 159km during 5 separate outings (3 on the road bike, 2 on the mountain bike). I recorded 1375m of vertical. All these numbers are significantly lower than those in March, but I guess that’s indicative of where my priorities are right now.

Walking: Speaking of priorities, walking wasn’t either. 32km with 568m of elevation gain. A slight improvement from March, but nothing worth writing home about.

Weight training: The coach had us do one bodyweight session while in Lanzarote. But other than that, I didn’t touch any iron during all of April.

Total time outside: 41h10. Almost identical to March.

Body composition: I notice some improvement. 79.89kg average (down 0.8kg since March), body fat 14.12% (down 0.5%). This is the leanest I’ve been in April since I started tracking these numbers daily in 2011. My April average was 2kg lighter than the same time last year; and 1kg lighter than 2015. For whatever that’s worth.

March was a high-volume month, and I’m quite happy with the majority of the training efforts even though I wish I had had some more energy during a handful. I set a new personal record for calories burned within a month (a highly imprecise number, granted): 26,415.

Track&field: March was a solid month as far as the number of track training sessions was concerned: 12. Nine of these were with the club, and 3 were indoors at the national team training. The numbers seem quite solid, but there were a few sessions were I could clearly feel the fatigue in my legs.

Road and trail running: On the running front, March was similarly solid. I clocked 134km and 4500m of elevation. I did 7 lunch runs, 4 hill runs and 2 trail runs. I didn’t race at all in February. However, the increased volume and quality of my outings has brought a marked improvement. I did one lunch run with sub 5min/km pace and some restraint as to effort spent – that’s a pace that I barely reached the previous month while racing a 9.4km race.

Cycling: Finally, some decent weather. This allowed me to take the bikes out on 9 different days. One of them was a commute to and from work, for a cumulative 38.5km day. Most other outings were during my lunch break, where work requirements kinda dictate that the effort cannot be more than about an hour, or 20-30km. In total, I spent 10h20 in the saddle, for 238km of distance and 2800m of vertical.

Walking: Not a priority with all the other things going on. 25km with 423m of elevation.

Weight training: None. I know, I know.

Total time outside: 40h45. Easily beat the 1h/day average I set myself as a target last month.

Body composition: 80.68kg. Body fat 14.60%. Down about half a kg from February, but body fat remains almost unchanged (-0.15%). Definitely some improvement, but I’m still not eating as healthily as I could/should.