Not too long ago I was complaining about what a lousy rainy summer we’d been having in Bremen, so of course this past week we got slammed with a late August heat wave. Certainly makes my training more interesting having to factor in whether it will be too hot to do my usual evening runs. But I’m not complaining — I love finally putting all of my summer dresses to good use (which until now have only seen the light of day when I was traveling in Istanbul, New York and DC). Anyway, on to my training…

Monday: Unplanned rest day. I ended up skipping out on my cross-training completely so I could spend the evening preparing for something important taking place on Tuesday.

Tuesday: 4.5-mile easy run. I was full of adrenalin by the time I made it home from work, but unfortunately it didn’t carry over into speediness so I just kept things relaxed.

Wednesday: Planned rest day.

Thursday: Unplanned rest day. Wow, the temperatures were still near 90 by the time evening rolled around, so I postponed my run until the next morning.

Friday: 3-mile easy run. Morning is really not my best time for running, but sometimes you’ve got no other choice!

Saturday: 4-mile pace run + 15 minutes strength training. Ideally I would be running these at the pace I want to run my half marathon. That isn’t happening yet, but I pushed the pace as much as I could given the temperature and was happy with the results.

Sunday: 9-mile long run. Oh man, this was rough. My legs were sore from the strength training and I overslept so it was already 80 degrees Fahrenheit by the time I made it out the door (and 88 degrees by the time I made it home). I kept it as easy as possible, drinking nearly a liter of water along the way, and taking the shadiest paths I know of. It was still pretty miserable, but I kept reminding myself that these miles will earn me a lot of interest in my running bank!

That’s it for this week! The good: I got in all of my miles and even did some strength training. The bad: Missed my cross-training and didn’t do my speed training. But now that things are getting calmer at work, I’m looking forward to really dedicated my energy to these last few weeks of training before the Bremen Half Marathon on October 2nd!

How was your week?