Pace and Grace

Another week of half marathon training in the books! Here’s what I did:

• 8 km “easy” run
• A couple strength workouts at home + one at the gym
• 2 km tempo run
• 13 km long run
• …and one extra run, just because I felt like it

What I Need to Work On

Mistake #1 – The “easy” 8K wasn’t easy at all.
I felt great and decided to speed up at the end. It didn’t feel like too much in the moment — but that was impulsive. Fatigue builds up silently. Starting the week with too much intensity could have affected the rest of my training (and not in a good way).

Mistake #2 – The extra run.
I got tired of running slow, so I picked up the pace “just a little.” The result? I ended up drained. And I had a long run scheduled two days later. Luckily, I managed to recover in time.

What Went Well

The 13K long run was my best one yet.
This time I planned ahead — and it made all the difference:

• Got up early to start running at 6 AM
• Took more water and wore better gear
• Started slow, gradually building pace — podcasts instead of music really helped me stay steady

It worked. I probably couldn’t have run much more than 13K, partly because of my early-week mistakes. But I got it done and still had energy left for the rest of the day.

Bonus? I got to enjoy the peace and beauty of an early summer morning.

Notes for the Future

• Don’t speed up on recovery runs
• If I want to add a bonus run — it has to be easy
• In the heat, run either early morning or late evening. Waking up early is hard — but running in 30°C is harder.