After falling short on the elevation total last week, I was determined to put in a solid week of climbing to make up for it. I’m definitely finding there is a noticeable difference from when I first started over here in Portugal. Running up some of my local hills around Cascais are noticeably easier. This is a good indication that my legs are getting stronger .

I feel more work is needed climbing ( and descending) in more technical locations to further adapt my body to this type of running, which I’m finding is so different to road running.

Swimming was down again this week, but I will make sure I hit my 3000m goal next week.

This is how the week went –

DAY	TRAINING	DISTANCE	ELEVATION
Monday AM	Technical trail run	5km	197m
TuesdayAM	E Run	10.8km	163m
TuesdayPM	I (interval) training	10.2km	186m
Wednesday AM	E Trail Run 10 min leg & core workout	7.3km	162m
Thursday AM	Trail Run	33.3km	1344m
Friday AM	E Run Ocean Swim 10 min leg & core workout	7km 1001m	107m
Friday PM	E Run	9.6km	309m
Saturday AM	T (threshold) Run	7.5km	245m
Sunday	E Run	13.7km	385m
TOTALS		Running 104.5km Swimming 1534m	3096m

As mentioned before I was keen to get some good climbing in this week. At over 3000m elevation gained, I don’t think I can recall ever doing that much climbing in a single week of running. Surprisingly the legs feel quite good and I will try to accomplish another 2000m plus week next week.

Total kilometers are still around 100km for the week. I will possibly look at increasing a little in a few weeks time.

After 8 weeks of solid training, I am very happy with my progress to date. Although my skinny running legs haven’t transformed into muscular , well developed trail running legs, they are definitely stronger and are handling the mileage quite well.

Till next week,

Happy Running,

 Andrew