So who knew that 7 weeks of Berlin Marathon training could sneak by so fast? Granted, I still have 11 weeks to go before the race on September 24th, so it isn’t exactly right around the corner — but things are getting real. My runs during the week are starting to surpass my “long” runs from early on in the training cycle, and I’m officially past half-marathon distance on the weekends now (which is a mental hurdle for me).
I have to admit, I haven’t been entirely satisfied with my training so far. Travel plus a lot of work and excuses made it easy for me not to get all my workouts in. But July is going to be my month, I know it! And this past week’s training went super well. I’m still not going as fast as I want to, but I still think I can get there…
Monday: Swimming, 30 minutes. It has been absolute ages since the last time I went swimming, and even though it’s not my favorite activity ever, it works wonders for active recovery and increasing my fitness. Swimming still causes a teeny tiny bit of anxiety, so I keep it relaxed and don’t put too much pressure on myself in terms of speed or distance. It’s all about just showing up and getting it done.
Tuesday: Hill training, 5 x hill. Ok, Bremen really has no hills to speak of, so this was kind of an experiment to see if the inclines along the river would do the trick. While it got my heart rate up for very short periods of time, the overall fitness impact (according to my Garmin heart monitor) was next to zero. Guess I’ll go back to good ole’ interval training.
Wednesday: 4-mile easy run. Very relaxed evening run along Osterdeich and in the direction of the Weserwehr, plus 15 minutes of strength training.
Thursday: 7-mile pace run. I’m lucky enough to have found a running partner to help increase the pace a bit and make the miles speed by (literally and figuratively)! A round through Bürgerpark and the Stadtwald.
Friday: Rest
Saturday: Rest
Sunday: 14-mile long run. To mix things up, for this run I tested out a new (to me) route. I ran up along the Bürgerpark and through the university campus to Blockland, which is a marsh area filled with running and biking paths. I don’t know why I’ve never tried running there! A friend and her husband showed me a 5-mile loop that they like, and these were my speediest miles of the run! On my way back, I discovered a shady bike path so that I didn’t have to run along the main street near the university again, and then I finished up by running down the other side of the park. Glad to have gotten the miles in without having to run multiple loops of the park.
So that’s that. I can’t promise that I’ll update here every week with my Berlin Marathon training, but I will try to share some highlights through the summer. Are you training for anything right now?