I have to admit, I’ve had less than a stellar week of training. I let the terrible weather and mein innerer Schweinehund get the best of me. But once the sun was shining again, I was ready to run! Obviously it’s problematic in Bremen to depend on the sunshine as a motivation for running, but I’ll take what I can get. I’m committed to being more committed next week, but first here’s a look at the past week…

• Monday: Rest
• Tuesday, yoga: Should have gone running, but I was. so. exhausted. Instead I did a much need hip opening yoga sequence. Yikes, are my legs tight these days.
• Wednesday, strength training: To mix things up, I used the strength training workout from Jillian Michael’s Seven-Day Shred.
• Thursday: Rest
• Friday, speed training: For once, the sun was shining and I was looking forward to my run after work. It was a 10-minute warm up, plus 6 x 800m @ 4:17, 4:22, 4:32, 4:15, 4:20, 4:24, plus a cool down. My splits are nowhere near where they are supposed to be, but hopefully there’s still some time for improvement.
• Saturday: Rest. Technically it was a rest day, but not so technically I got a major upper body workout assembling a cupboard for my bathroom. Seriously, it took me ages longer than I thought it should have and left me with sore arms and shoulders.
• Sunday, long run: Woke up extra early (for me on a Sunday) to get in an 8-mile run before a friend’s birthday picnic. It was absolutely lovely to be out running while it was still relatively cool and I enjoyed every bit of it, even it was slower than I would have liked.

So that’s it, friends. Today I will be hunting down some new running shoes and clothes, which are well deserved and will carry me through the rest of my training. Maybe new duds will make me go a bit faster, you think?