Plan to break monotony

Monotony....................certainly a one word description of my running over the last few months. Then again how does one introduce variety into base building "aerobic only" running. I know, I know, introduce some fast running (fartleks, hills etc. Brendan's said it already) - that's exactly what I did this time last year and while March and April were great months, it was injury and downhill after that - still some 8 weeks out from the race I was training for. So this year I thought I'd try something new - it was going to be easy does it, I don't need that much speedwork, 6 to 8 weeks is more than enough. However what I have been missing is a clear target to aim for. I had been half thinking of a spring marathon but have finally decided to wait until Cork on 1st June. However I am not going to wait another 10 weeks to start speedwork so I have settled on slowly introducing speedwork into my routine probably starting on fartleks (Thomas's 30/30 sessions sound like fun) and hills and building from there (short intervals and 10k pace tempo runs leading to longer intervals and HM tempo runs - i.e. increasing the distance and reducing the speed as the Marathon approaches and taking in some races on the way - specificity is the name of the game) The broad plan for the remainder of the year is to take in a few triathlons in July and August (great recovery from marathon training to spread the focus for a few months) and back into training for the Dublin marathon (probably) in October. I agree with the comments on my last post in that I don't think I have necessarily gained all the benefits of my aerobic training yet and that I could have been on an off day (although I felt worse on the day of my best MAF test). On Wednesday morning I got in a medium long run of 12.5 miles which went off without a hitch. However Thursday mornings run over 7.8 miles was a different story. My legs felt very heavy, especially over the first few miles and the entire run was at a slow pace. I though I was coming down with a cold on Thursday night as I was awake half the night with the classic symptoms. However come Friday morning I felt ok but far too tired to rise early enough for a run and as I was in Dublin for the day I did not get an opportunity to get out. Tomorrow's long run may be cut short as I'm contemplating running in the 2nd Munster 10 miler in Dungarvan on Sunday. Wed 28th Jan a.m. 12.47 miles in 01:37:45 (07:50 pace 137 hr) p.m. 2.5 miles @ 07:54 pace (treadmill) Thur 29th Jan 7.83 miles in 01:06:16 (08:28 pace - No Garmin - this is the 2nd time the garmin has refused to start in the morning)