Weeks 30, 31 & 32

Lakeland 50 and beyond...

The highlight of this week was the Lakeland 50, 50-miler. Other than that I only did an easy run on Monday and Wednesday and a hike on Friday to check the race route.

The following week I spent in Portugal. The funny thing is that, contrary to my usual after-marathon mental state, now I felt like running again almost immediately. Ok, the first two days I would in quite a bit of pain, but then I'd gladly put on my running shoes and go conquering the beach; only it wasn't so easy to fit it in with our holidays there. Still I managed to do one easy run around a lake and then one hilly and one flat run close to Chaves.

The following week was again tricky and I only managed to do one run on Wednesday as afterwards we were off to Austria for hiking. On Saturday the weather was not good so we stayed in a spa where I did a tiny bit of swimming.

So, what next? Well, the Berlin marathon is just around the corner. If I discount the last week, which is left for recovery, then there are only 5 training weeks left. Certainly not much. So, now would be the time to start serious training. Less focus on volume, more focus on speed. I'll probably do 2 fast trainings per week: intervals and a continuous run at a target marathon speed (~4:30min/km) followed by easy running, increasing the fast part with time (up to, 20K?). Then on top of that a longer run, but of not more than 20-25K (maybe 30K once). And the remaining 1-2 recovery trainings. So far I was not very consistent with training due to lots of travelling but from now on I hope I'll be able to put in some solid hours; after all Berlin may be my last shot at the marathon for a bit...

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