I mentioned last week that I’m in the midst of training for the Berlin Half Marathon, and I’m eager to share my progress with you.  Despite an enormous amount of work and frigid temperatures, my 5th week of training went surprisingly well. Here was the plan:

• Speed training: 7 x 400 meters at 10K race pace
• Yoga
• 3-mile run + strength training
• 9-mile run

And here’s the reality of the past week:

• Speed training: 7 x 400 meters at 10K race pace.  I can’t even explain how much fun this was — in a very sweaty, challenging way, of course!  It involved a short warm up at an easy pace, and then 400 meters at the same pace I would run during a 10K race.  And then a short recovery period with easy jogging or fast walking for about the same amount of time as it took to complete the 400 meters.  Then I repeated this six more times (1 additional repeat than the last time I did this workout).  For some crazy reason, I find speed training totally entertaining and the time just flew by.  For my next speed training, though, I think I will up it to my 5K race pace, which is slightly faster.
• Yoga.  40 minutes at home, no problem.
• 3-mile run + strength training.  The run was easy and no problem.  I added in a full circuit of strength training, which was also felt good.  But because that just takes so much time, next week I plan to split the strength training into two, since I’m at the gym twice anyway.  On my “hard run” evenings, I’ll focus on upper body and save the leg work for after my “easy runs”.
• 9-mile run.  The weather was slightly warmer this week (-7C/19F) and the sun was out, which made things more pleasant.  Unfortunately, though, my legs felt like lead the entire run.  I’m wondering if I’ve been too lax with my eating — not paying  attention to my nutrition enough to be able to have the energy I need.  Note to self: now is probably the point in my mileage where I need to be a bit more careful about that, otherwise I’ll always feel like I running through mud.