1 hour of running, a 21 km skate on a 400m track and 2 hours on the wind trainer - that was my weekend

I set my alarm for 7:20 on Saturday morning, got up, had some bread with jam for breakfast and an hour later I headed out for my run (interval training). The weather didn't loook to friendly when I woke up, but exactly when I put on my shoes the clouds vanished and the sun came out. Perfect. Even though it was 8:40 in the morning and I was wearing 3/4 pants and a shirt, I got way too hot. I started with a 15min warm-up and jogged down to the river. I soon noticed that it wasn't such a great idea to only rest an hour after breakfast (normally I wait 1,5 to 2 hours, but well, I didn't really wanna get up any earlier). I got a stitch, then I felt sick and on top of that I got a stomachache. I tried not to think about it and just kept running, hoping all those bad things would go away again – and they did. I did min/min for 30min. So 1min fast, 1min slow, 1min fast… Because this was my first running interval after my break, it felt way harder than usual. After 15min of min/min I turned around and ran all the way back again so that I got an hour of training. From that point I struggled through the rest of the intervals. I was out of breath and my legs didn't want to go any faster so I just concentrated on still going reasonably fast and maintaining a good running technique. After the 15min cool-down (the run home) and 5min of stretches, I vegetated on the couch, read a magazine and made sure I got lots of rest. 10min after I got home the sun was gone again and the clouds were back, even bigger and darker than before, so I couldn't have chosen a better time for my run. That was pretty awesome :). I had lunch and soon again got ready to go skating, even though it looked like it could rain any time.

I took the bus to the Air Force Museum where we train on Saturdays and got ready. The wind had picked up since the morning so it was actually cold. We started with the 15min warm-up and I got a bit warmer. My ankle hurt pretty bad from the run I did earlier and thanks to the headwind on one straight, it was also pretty hard. We were supposed to do 2 x 10km, but me and Mark decided to do one 20km. We thought it would be easier to just keep going instead of doing a 10km, taking a break for 5min and then having to do another one, because we know how much it sucks to go again after a break when you're already tired. We skated on a 400m lap, so that meant 52 laps and because I had the great idea to do 1km more so that it would be a half marathon, it meant 54,5 laps for me :). I was still tired from the run in the morning, so I knew it was going to be tough. My legs soon got tired and each lap felt like an eternity. We did 2 laps leads but the leads always felt way too long and the ones where I didn't lead felt way too short. After we were halfway through it got really hard. Mark was in a better shape so he asked if I want him to lead more, but no way I was gonna say yes… My heart rate stayed between 172 and 176 (we were supposed to do it with 85 – 88 % of our max heart rate), so that was a bit too high (85 – 88 % would have been 164 – 170), but well… With 15 laps to go the screw from one of Mark's wheels got loose so he had to slow down, get an Allen key and fix it. I pushed him or skated slower to stay with him. And god was I glad for the break! When he was done, we "only" had 10 laps to go and I though ok, that's like nothing, I can do that… But 10 laps can feel very very long and in the last two laps I had to really try not to get dropped. Mark finished and I did 2,5 more laps by myself before I had a drink and did a short cool-down cos once I stopped skating I got really cold. I got changed and tried to get warm again, before walking to the bus station and going home. By the time I took a shower and had dinner it was already 7pm, so the day was almost over and I just relaxed on the couch and talked on the phone or watched tv.

Sunday was another rather busy day. After I got up I did the laundry, checked my emails, had something to eat and left the house at 10:55am to walk to the bus station. I met Vicky and we went to the mall. We walked around the shops for what felt like ages and my legs got quite tired. I think they were still tired from yesterday's training. After we've seen everything, we took the bus again and I went to the shopping mall close to our place to buy some salad. I then had to walk home because there was no bus at that time. When I got home at 3:15pm, I had something to eat and got my wind trainer ready. I watched German tv while sweating on my bike for 2 hours. I had to choose a high resistance to get my heart rate up. It wasn't very hard for my legs but 2 hours is still a long time and I did get tired eventually. By the time I was finished and had a shower it was 6pm already so I started to make dinner (loooots of chicken salad), did my stretches and finally got to relax in front of the tv.

Oh yeah, by the way, these are my new running shoes. Nothing special, but I thought I'd post a photo. They're Brooks Defyance 3. I've only worn them inside so far, but I think I'll wear them for tomorrow's run.