Definitely Not Going to Plan

Its been quite a while since I wrote anything down, well about running that is. Most of the first six months of the year was spent writing for college, and not so much of the running, which is why I find myself where I am now.

Getting the entry for Berlin was an unexpected surprise, but to be honest a poisoned challace. If it had been last year, or the year after next, I might have been able to give it a descent shot, but as things stand, I will struggle at best.

While I was doing some running, many weeks was only mileage in the 20's, and of poor quality, just ticking over. No real speed work , no hills, no tempos and no long runs of any substance. Quite a few 8 mile runs at 7:40 to 8:00 miles. When I did finish college I had hoped to have time to get some good training done, but then work took over. I basically spent five weeks travelling around Europe, eating at lots of nice restaurants as part of it in the evenings, which was great, but not very good for training.

Things have improved somewhat over the last few weeks, but the long runs are proving very difficult as week after week I struggle badly in trying to keep any type of consistent pace for any distance. This week I ran 16 miles at 7:23 average, and almost walking the last 1.5 miles home, having to lie on the floor to recover when I got in the door! Admittedly the distance for the week was 57 miles, but  many times last year I would have routinely run that mileage and had no problem with a 20 mile run at the same pace, or even 10 seconds faster.

It seems I went from 8 to 15 too quickly for the long runs, not building consistently as I have done on other blocks. Also, the lack of tempos is really showing. There was one tempo this week, 1 mile warmup, 8 miles at 6:44 average, with a 2 mile cooldown. Last year than would have been 20 seconds faster.

So with some holidays planned, and only 5 weeks to Berlin, I have to start thinking about what I can 'get away with'. I would love to think 3:20 might be possible, but judging by my recent long runs alone, that looks overly optimistic. So it looks like I will be back to 3:30 territory , where I started 6 years ago. Not so bad I suppose, it's all relative, if I take it easy and try to run within myself, I am more likely to enjoy the event.