After a week's break, the fourth week of half marathon preparation is now over. Break is the wrong word, of course. It was just a break from running. The substitutes were hiking, mountaineering and climbing. And even that was pretty exhausting.
Nevertheless, I scaled back my training sessions a bit this week. To start slowly again and not get sore muscles like in the first week. I started this week with the first run in the heart rate zone 2, which was also the first one I didn't run on the treadmill, but outside. I always thought this wouldn't work so well because I'm not bound to the speed like on the treadmill. But it worked surprisingly well.
But the interval training was hard again. When I was hiking through the mountains, I partly imagined how easy interval training was compared to mountain climbing. Now I almost wished I was back on the mountain. So I tried to make the best of it and imagined that each interval was another peak I wanted to climb. And on the last one, at the top, I was especially proud of myself. That I had made it once again.
This time I did the run in the heart rate zone 1 sober. Directly after getting up in the morning and without eating anything beforehand. And apart from the thought "When can I finally have breakfast?", these runs are not so bad for me. Especially as the run in zone 1 is always the most fun for me. And afterwards breakfast tastes all the better.
So the week off from running really helped me on several levels. I got to know other limits during this week and was also able to strengthen myself mentally.