Week two of training done, week three just commencing.

This last week has been one of my biggest mileage weeks to date at about 94 miles.  It's been mainly steady running, but I feel like it has gone well.  As we are still moving around Australia a little bit, I've not really done many runs in the same place so it has been fun exploring different places and routes.  I'm still having to go out early doors and late-ish evening to miss the worst of the heat (a couple of days ago it was 42 degrees!) but I enjoy being up and out before it gets busy.  I find that it is a great time to see places and also clear my head.

On Saturday I did a 9 mile tempo run which was supposed to be 7 miles at target marathon pace and then picking it up so the last two miles were at target half marathon pace.  With the exception of the mini session I did last week, it was my first real session since travelling to Australia and I was a little worried I'd have lost some fitness over the last week or two.  It didn't go exactly to plan - my first seven ended up being slightly quicker than marathon pace, and the last two slightly slower than half marathon pace - so we didn't see such the defined pick up that we were looking for.  However, it showed that I have not lost any fitness and has given me confidence that I can just pick up where I left off a couple of weeks ago.

We have decided not to race for the first part of our trip.  We will be in New Zealand over New Year and know of a couple of races I may do just to test the ground and see where we are up to, however the main races won't be until we go to the US at the beginning of February.