3 laps of the Palace

My intermediate half-marathon plan said "5 miles pace" on Saturday and "10 miles slow" on Sunday. Well, I did the 10 miles slow at Greenwich yesterday, but since Monday is a holiday I decided to leave the 5 miles pace run until then and did 3 leisurely laps of Crystal Palace Park this morning for a total of 5.76 miles.

Having said that, Crystal Palace is still a decent workout as the terrain is quite hilly and a good mixture of terrain underfoot. So not too "leisurely". Hopefully the hills will pay off when I do the - mostly flat - New Forest Half.

After a slow start I've still managed 69 miles in August so far, with another 5 to come tomorrow. So my total for the year now is 563 miles - which means I've completed 75% of my challenge - in 65% of the time.

Back on track

Still no scope to go running at lunchtimes during the week but instead I got out for a couple of early morning pre-work runs. It's a bit of a struggle getting out of bed an hour earlier on a workday, but it's worth it once I get running and I feel a lot more awake at work afterwards.

Yesterday I did 4 miles at Dulwich at my planned race pace (8:45 minute miles) for the upcoming half marathon, and today I did 4 and a half laps at Greenwich, so in terms of my race training I'm more or less back on track after a couple of weeks where I fell behind a bit.

Total for August is now 49.4 miles and for the year 543.4 miles.

Frustration

I started a new assignment at work on August 3rd. Although it's based at an office at London Bridge right next to the river, so far it's been too busy to be able to get out for any lunchtime runs. Also I was back in Edinburgh for the weekend and had friends visiting which cut down the running opportunities. So my mileage has dropped away significantly these last two weeks, which is frustrating.

I'm going to start getting up early a couple of days every week and going out for a local run before leaving for work. It'll help me keep up with the training schedule for the half-marathon next month.

So, a total of just under 30 miles so far in August, bringing my total for the year to 523 miles.

500 miles !

Passing 500 miles for 2010 means it's time for a musical interlude:

A good couple of weeks' running began with a few midweek and weekend trips to Dulwich where I carried on with my half-marathon training - including some 400 metre intervals - and then back to Edinburgh for a long weekend where I did three laps around Inverleith on Friday evening for 7 miles, and a couple of circuits of Arthur's Seat (with a stop in the middle when I caught up with Sophie and her parents) for 4.46 and 2.1 miles. Taking my total for July to nearly 79 miles. Four miles this lunchtime in Dulwich takes my total to 504.53 for the year.

Tomorrow I start a new assignment, which will make it more difficult to run at lunchtimes. So I might have to start being a bit more creative to keep up with my training plan.