Run, Koper, run

So, the big day is coming. Berlin is only 4 days away, so normally it would be time to evaluate my form and come up with reasonable targets for the race. The problem is, normally I'd have done some shorter races before (10K, HM), which would give me a good indication on what I could reasonably expect. Not this time. Somehow things aligned in such a way that I did no races whatsoever since the Paris marathon (and later, Lakeland 50 , but that is hardly a yardstick to compare with, given that it was my debut on this distance). So it is going to be a bit of a guessing game. Since I love crunching numbers I decided to make a little table with all my previous marathon races and the average mileage I did in 12 weeks preceding the event (excluding the week of the marathon itself, as that is supposed to be left for tapering). Here are the results: Date Location Result Weekly mileage 19/10/2003 Amsterdam   3:23:53 30.9 km 4/07/2004 Brugge   3:15:53 44.7 km 13/02/2005 Rom...

Below target yet again... I started with a day off on Monday, as planned. Then on Tuesday I was in Santa Cruz and went for an easy, recovery run along the coast, which turned out to be quite picturesque. Unfortunately I missed my Wednesday training, although instead I went for a very nice sport massage. As a bonus the masseur told me about the Big Sur half-marathon , along the beautiful coast close down there. It's in November and I do hope to go for it. Then I could not do any running on Thursday as I spent the day in a car and then a plane back to Amsterdam. That meant that to keep the minimum respectable 4 trainings this week I'd have to do 3 runs over the weekend upon coming back. It started promising as on Friday evening, suffering from a jet lag, I still went for a run. The idea was to do a fast 14K; ideally at a target marathon pace. Unfortunately I didn't feel too strong (jet lag?) and only managed a 4:45min/km average pace. That means that next week, to make...

Another good week. I was worried about this week, as on Friday I was going for holidays to California and was seriously doubting whether I'll manage to do any running there. So the plan was to try to at least plan 4 workouts before leaving; no time to waste. On Monday I joined a Sportsworld run. The pace was super relaxed and my heart rate was in the jogging range, so I was happy to see at the end that the average pace was 5:39min/km; sure, not fast, but not sluggishly slow either. Then on Tuesday intervals on the track: 4 times 2K with a short break in between. My plan was to do it at 4:00min/km. There was a big group with this exact target so I was happy to join them for the ride. We took off and I immediately knew that the pace was far too fast: we did the first 400m in 3:45min/km and I jkeust knew that I won't be able to keep up with that pace. Gladly we slowed after this first lap but we still did the first rep in 3:51min/km and I was wasted by the end of it. The secon...

Finally a solid week. After 3 consecutive days of running (after injury) I was planning to take Monday off, but there was a group from SportsWorld going for a run and I just couldn't resist. It was a very nice training, I did a total of almost 17K and the main part of the training at a very decent pace of around 5:00min/km. Felt great to be able to run again! Tuesday off and then on Wednesday I decided to try to finally run at a faster pace. The idea was to go at a target marathon pace (4:30min/km) for 10K. For the first kilometer my watch was most of the time telling me that I'm outside of the zone, so I though I was doing something like 4:40 and it was a great surprise when Endomondo informed me I did the first kilometer in 4:16. I had a dilemma whether to trust my Polar watch or my GPS, but calibrating the Polar is a tricky business plus I was completely knackered after this first kilometer so I decided to trust Endo and settled into a slower pace, around the planned 4:30...

Not an injury again... That was supposed to be the week. With all guests gone, obligations gone and my better half away, I had grand plans. 100K or more. I started easy with a day off on Monday, then a gym on Tuesday followed by the usual interval session at the track in the evening. And this is where the things went south... During exercises preceding the main part of the workout I felt something snap... something, that later turned out to be a pulled groin muscle. In quite a bit of pain I skipped the remaining part of the exercises and was wondering whether I should call it a day or go ahead with the intervals. I hate to quite and yet getting seriously injured and having to skip a few weeks is certainly not an inviting alternative. I decided to go ahead with the training and quite if it got worse. It didn't. The pain was there but I though I had it in check. The fastest group was far too fast for me and the one behind was slightly too slow, so I ended up running mostly on my...