Wow, the days are ticking by and I’m getting more and more excited for the race — less than two weeks left!  This week was very satisfying in terms of running, and my training went pretty much according to plan:

• Tuesday: Rest.  If you remember from last week, Monday turned into my long run day from Week 9, so I ended up with one less rest day this week than normal.
• Wednesday: Core workout + 50-minute tempo run.  I did my core workout in the morning, and switched my tempo run to the evening.   Mein (must faster) Schatz agreed to help me keep pace, and we started with a 14-minute warm-up (which is about how long it takes to get from our apartment to the small lake that we run around).  Then we ran for about 23 minutes or so at my 10K pace, and I had to push it a bit, but it helped to have someone to chase after to keep up my pace!  We finished up with an 13-minute cool down.
• Thursday: 4.84-mile run.  This was just about the same route as the tempo run, and again it was nice to have meinSchatz along again as company.  I tried to keep my effort up, but at the same time stay relaxed.
• Friday: 4-mile run.  After two days in a row of relatively intense training, my legs were aching.  But the weather was sunny and beautiful and I was super anxious to go running.  With a short run on my schedule, I decided to give it all I had and see what happened.  I went out a bit too fast during the first half, and had to slow it down a bit on my way home, but still managed an overall pace of 9:27/mile.  This is somewhere between by speed-interval pace and my tempo pace, so I was pretty pleased with myself that I could perform even on very tired legs.  I was supposed to do a lower body strength workout as well, but I think that would have pushed me over the edge, so I scratched it off my plan.
• Saturday: Rest. Lots of hydrating and eating carbs (and maybe some ice cream), and wandering around in the warm sun.
• Sunday: 11-mile run.  My legs were still tired from the week, but otherwise I felt well prepared and well fueled for the run.  The weather was warm, so I used a fuel belt to bring four small bottles of water and Gatorade with me.  I’m not a fan of having 750 ml of liquid strapped around my waist, but I can’t carry that much liquid in a bottle in my hand for two hours without getting should cramps.  Plus, there are too many Berliners who go rummaging around in the bushes and would be more than happy to relieve me of my carefully stashed away bottle of isotonic drink.  So, a fuel belt it was.    The run itself was pretty uneventful, if overly full of families, strollers, dogs, and bikes out enjoying the nice weather.  I ran the first half rather conservatively, and ramped up my effort in the second half.  Like I wrote on my DailyMile post, by mile 10, my knees, stomach and bladder were ready to be done.  Even so, if it had been the race, I could have pushed harder.  Overall, I ran faster 30 seconds per mile faster than last week’s run, so I consider that a success — even if I’m still slower overall than I’d like to be at this point.

And now I’m sitting on the couch, totally exhausted, with my legs up, icing my knee.  See, look how fun this is!  Are you sure you don’t want to join me and run along too?

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