Yesterday afternoon I was glued to the screen for the entire women’s Olympic marathon from start to finish via livestream. Need some extra motivation for your own training? I highly recommend watching elite runners compete, especially under difficult conditions like the high temperatures and humidity in Rio. The US team was a power house, with Shalane Flanagan, Des Linden, and Amy Cragg coming in 6th, 7th, and 9th — I think it’s best US performance ever as a team. And I was totally floored that Germany’s top finisher Anja Scherl (44th place with 2:37:23) — who qualified for the Olympics with a third place finish in the same Hamburg Marathon that I ran — has a full-time desk job and trains for marathons on evenings and weekends. Amazing! (There are no excuses, I guess.)
So, what did my week of training for the Bremen Half Marathon look like? The distances and cross-training workouts are slowly on the increase…
Monday: 40-minutes on the stationary bike. This is definitely not my favorite form of a workout, but my legs did feel like jelly afterwards, so I suppose it’s having the intended effect.
Tuesday: 4-mile easy run + 15-minutes strength training.
Wednesday: Planned rest day. Time for my monthly massage, yay!
Thursday: Unplanned rest day. Another long work day trying to meet a deadline.
Friday: Speed training. 10 minutes warm-up, 7 x 400m, 10-minutes cool down. I’m getting closer and closer to my target pace here, so it seems like I’m doing something right. Maybe by my next speed session in two weeks, I’ll make it (although the number of repeats increases every time, making it more difficult).
Saturday: Easy 30-minute run. How can you tell when you overdo a training run? When your easy run the next day feels like death. Yeah, I was definitely dragging.
Sunday: 8-mile long run. My GPS didn’t kick in until about half-an-hour into my run (seems like a pattern), so I just relied on my pre-measured route. Legs were definitely still tired and my shoulders and arms were stiff because the day before I hauled my new end table up all of the steep steps up to my 3rd floor apartment. But I powered through and enjoyed some good foam rolling afterwards while watching the Olympic marathon.
All in all: I’m happy with my mileage and hitting all of my planned workouts. I’m still not a fan of bunching up the majority of my runs over the weekend, but I guess it’s better than not getting them in at all. Same story as last week with my strength training — I’m gonna keep trying to get them in!
Which Olympic events are your favorites? Did you watch yesterday’s marathon?
Hello! I stumbled upon your blog while researching London food tours. I’m a runner, as well and also spent last Sunday glued to the television screen. I was so pleased for the US team. I’m planning to run two half-marathons this Fall, one in Maine in October and one in Massachusetts in November. Good luck with your training!
Hi Caryn, thanks for stopping by! It seems like there’s so much good food in London these days, you really can’t go wrong. :) If you follow the Instagram feeds of @urbanpixxels and @jessonthames, you’ll find all sorts of wonderful insider foodie information on London. Best of luck with your half marathon training — fall races are the best, aren’t they?