I have noticed that the majority of the blogs that I read have been posting less and less over the last six months, sadly my own blog falls into this category. In my case I am often faced with either training or blogging, there are many days where there is not time for both. Enough excuses, let me try to catch up.
Overall I am satisfied with my performance at the 50K on 21, after the first couple loops it was clear to me that I was running at a pace that was a bit too fast for me, but decided it was more important to continue as long as I could with Birgit when it became clear she was having a good day. It does bother me a bit that I couldn't recover once I slowed my pace down, in past years I could usually pick the pace up again after a rest.
The week following the 50K (last week) I went on my first recovery run with Birgit on Tuesday night, we both had tired legs, but no cramps or negative effects from the race. We kept the pace slow and chatted through around 7.5 km (ca. 5 miles), just enough to loosen up the legs. On Wednesday I ran around 15 km (9 mi.) with RB at our normal pace (around 10 min./mi.). On Thursday I met Ironman finishers Bernd and Uli for a run, we ran 11 km (7 mi.) at a slightly faster pace (9:20 min./mi.), they are running the Vienna Marathon/Halfmarathon on April 18.
On Saturday morning I was up early and at the trailhead of my hilly running route in Weingarten around 8:00 a.m. I ran 32 km (20 mi.) at a faster than normal pace for this hilly terrain, around 6:24/km (10:20/mi.). This was about 30 seconds/km faster than normal - and excellent training for the hilly German Wine Street Marathon that I am running on April 18.
On Sunday I met RB under dark and dreary skies for a two hour run. We ran for maybe 25 minutes before the skies opened up and drenched us, by the end of our run we looked (and felt) like a couple wet kittens. It has been a long time since I have been caught in a hard rain, we were drenched through and through! Unlike most days I didn't linger when I dropped RB off at her apartment, there was a cold wind and I was soaked. Luckily both of us survived without catching a cold.
Last night I ran out of running friends, so went for a run on my own. The trails were still wet from rain that had fallen earlier in the day, but I wanted to test my speed. After warming up for a kilometer I increased my pace to around 5:15/km (8:27/mi.) and managed to hold it more or less for most of the 20 km (12.4 mi.) run. I finished with an average pace of 5:19/km (8:33/mi.), my fastest run so far this year.
This morning (Wednesday) my legs, particularly the knees, are feeling the effects of my spontaneous speed training. I want to add a faster run in this range to my weekly training schedule. I don't need this for my 100K race on June 11th, but I would like to run a marathon or two under four hours during the summer.
The last couple months I have been waking up with some back pain. My walks to the train station in the morning have generally been accompanied by a feeling of my right leg going to sleep. This is a classic symptom of a pinched nerve in the lower back. Since it seems to only occur early in the morning or when I am standing for long periods of time, and doesn't bother me at all when I run and swim, I have been trying to ignore it. It seems to be getting slowly better, bothering me only the mornings after I swim or work in the garden the night before. I suppose it would get better faster if I would stop running, swimming and working in the garden for a couple weeks...in any case I am monitoring it carefully and hope it doesn't turn worse.
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