A quiet Summer.

Following the wake-up call that was the Marathon du Pays Basque, I've had a quiet six weeks from a running point-of-view.

I over-reached.  Trying to pile too much into too short a time frame finally took its toll.  To some degree, it's because I'm a very inexperienced runner but in large part it's because I don't see any point in setting myself challenges that I can almost certainly complete.  And, perhaps because failure is always a strong possibilities, I can really enjoy succeeding.

I set myself two challenges at the start of the year and think I can safely say that I'll complete only one of them.  Completing an ultra-marathon is done but I can't see how I'll get a dozen marathon events completed this year. I may have to defer that one until another year.

Re-evaluating my training over the last few weeks, I've moved into a very different rhythm and mixture of training.  For the last 6 weeks, the routine has been a half-marathon distance slow run week and one or two other sessions per week.  The other sessions are either hill repeats, hill sprints or a tempo run.  And, in terms of speed and strength, it seems that less is more.

I'll need to build out the long run again when I'm back to proper marathon running.  Technically, I'm running a marathon next week but as it is the Marathon du Médoc, I intend to take my time, taste some wine and generally get into the festival spirit.