I'm officially through the base and build phases of my training plan, and I'm just starting my second cut back week. 

The less intense, lower volume week of training couldn't have come at a better times. My legs were definitely starting to feel some of the cumulative fatigue of training. I had a nine mile long run on Saturday, and it was a bit rocky. 

I felt really sluggish going out, and didn't seem to find any energy until I took in some more fuel around mile four. I started feeling a better, but the hills in my neighborhood really beat me up over the course of this run. 

Living in a hilly neighborhood is both a blessing and a curse when it comes to training. It's great for building endurance, but man on those long runs they just really destroy your legs. 

Training by heart rate is still going really well.

It's still humbling how slow I have to run to keep my heart rate in zone two for my recovery runs, but I can tell my legs really appreciate when I run my easy runs at the easier pace that I'm supposed to be doing them.

I'm also still really enjoying this training plan overall. I like the variety of workouts between the base and build phases. And looking ahead at the peak weeks I have coming up, I like seeing those workouts are varied too. 

Typically, by this point in a training plan, I'm a bit burned out and really bored of the repetitiveness of a lot of the plans I've used in the past. But I'm not experiencing that just yet, and I'm still mainly looking forward to my runs, even when my alarm goes off at 5:30 a.m.

My first of two half marathons is five weeks away. All I have left after this cut back week is two weeks of peak training and then some taper. 

I'm super excited to have an in-person race to look forward to. This training cycle has been so much more enjoyable than last year, and I think it's because I have a real live race to look forward to.