Holiday

Was on holiday for 12 days in Japan, hence training was very limited. Went to Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, Fukuoka, and Hiroshima.

On one hand, I felt the holiday is a major disruption to my training. I have a decent patch over the last couple of months and it feels diappointing to break that momentum. Furthermore, after this holiday, I will only have 8 weeks left to prepare for the marathon. On the flip side, since there were no peak races this year, I've been training pretty much week in week out for the whole year. Hence a short break was perhaps good for the mind and body.

Overall, I did a total 90k for the last 2 weeks - which is not exactly marathon training. I felt the holiday eroded my endurance slightly - judging from the workouts that I had in Japan. Out of the 4 runs during the holiday, I only had one solid workout: 3 x 5k @ sub MP on the narrow streets of Kyoto. The two runs in Tokyo were so-so. I wanted to run in Imperial Palace which had a 5k unintterupted loop but I had troubles finding the place by foot from the hotel. I ended up runnning around the local streets under a myriad of skyscrapers and overhead bridges and railway tracks (GPS was out of whack). I also found Japan summer was only slightly cooler than Singapore but was humid throughout.

8 weeks of training left to the marathon... I wish I can buy more time.

25/8: 35mins recovery
26/8: 45mins easy
27/8: 24k in 2 hours
28/8: off (fly to Japan)
29/8: off
30/8: off
31/8: off
1/9: 8k in 37mins (av 4:40) incl 2 x 1600m in 5:42, 6:00 w/ 3mins jog (Kyoto)
2/9: 18k in 82mins (av 4:33) incl 3 x 5k @ 4:20-4:25 pace w/ 2mins rec (Kyoto)
3/9: off
4/9: off
5/9: Approx 11k easy in 54mins (GPS went beserk in Tokyo due to skyscrapers)
6/9: Approx 15k in 74mins incl 5k tempo @ ~ HM pace (GPS went beserk again)
7/9: off (fly back to SG)