Half Way There! Week Eight Training Update

Well I've officially made it half way in my 16 week training plan for the Gay Games Marathon in Cologne, Germany on August 7th. I am putting in a lot of hours and miles and the schedule only gets tougher over the next several weeks. As a change of pace last Friday - I took an entirely different route and ran around both Safeco and Quest Fields in Seattle. I am getting a bit bored with the same old route daily so it really helped to have a change in scenery. I ended up connecting with a trail to West Seattle. I’ll definitely be doing this again especially when the runs hit 11-12 miles in the morning. It’s a bit more industrial and more traffic but I discovered a new bakery that I will be checking out soon and two new parks that I’ve never been to.
Over the last 8 weeks I’ve run 371.61 miles in 57:18:53 at an average pace of 9:15 – I feel pretty good although I am frequently tired. I am looking forward to the next eight weeks of training! I need to get serious about my travel plans to Cologne. The only thing I’ve done is register for the games and make hotel reservations. Flights are expensive - I’ve been to Europe several times and have never had to pay this much for airfare. I have to say that I am glad the Euro continues to fall in value! I am thinking of flying into Amsterdam and then taking the train from there to Cologne. I actually have several trips planned between now and then – Atlanta the weekend of June 18th and then DC for the July 4th holiday. Busy, busy between now and Cologne!

Week eight totals:

Sunday – 20 mile long run
Monday – rest
Tuesday – 8.21 speed work
Wednesday – 8.32 hills
Thursday – 8.16 easy
Friday – 8.46 easy
Saturday – 9.46 (2 mile warm up run followed by 12k race)

Now that I am at the half way point I plan to resume my cross training - not sure what that will look like – some core strength building for sure and light weight training.

Have a good one –

Jim