Training Day #3

When I started the planning for this race, I decided, I might as well give the half marathon distance a try since you know 9.3 is close to 13.1. Crazy I know. But really though, my logic was that if I can survive 9.3 then surely I can make it another 4ish miles and complete a half. And what better place to do it than my hometown and the annual Kentucky Derby Half Marathon. (I still haven't actually signed up for it. I'm sort of waiting to make sure this 15K doesn't kill me.) I searched high and low and finally found a training plan that sounded reasonable, easy (enough at least), and still gave me at least 2 days off each week. I finally landed on Hal Higdon's Half Marathon Novice 1 training program.  (Half Marathon Novice 1 Training Program) My plan was in place, but after the hiccups I dealt with in December, I ended up a few weeks behind.

All week I've been debating do I start with week 1, knowing that I only had 6 weeks to go, and that as of week 6 my longest run would have only been 6 miles.  So after feeling as good as I did post-run last night I decided tonight I would step it up a little more and try to at least cover my miles for the week.  At this point in weeks 1 and 2, I would have covered 8 miles (I've bumped the schedule up a day so that my long runs fall on Saturday). And guess what - I did it with 3/10 extra! So my plan is to skip weeks 1 and 3, and continue to increase my long runs by 1 mile each week, which will put me at having covered 8 miles the weekend before the race. 

Now this could totally backfire. We shall see, but I'm feeling good, and tonight's run just further proved that I'm getting back quicker than I ever expected. 

By the way - did you see that?! 3.7 miles and a whole minute faster than last night! That includes my 10 minute warm up and cool down too, so taking those out of the mix brings my pace down to 12:11/mi. And that my friends is something I'm pretty excited about. I'm still slow and don't really anticipate my pace improving drastically beyond this, but that's ok! I'm good with being slow. I'm racing the me that would rather be laying on the couch like a sloth with a good book in my hands. So I have to keep my competitive nature in check and remind myself that any speed is a good speed.

In other news, I so thankful that my coughing is slowly going away. This flu is a nasty bug. I discovered that a combination of taking sips of water every few minutes, along with sucking on some candy helped tremendously. Even more ironic though, the coughing seems to be worse when I'm walking as opposed to running. Guess that's a sign I need to just keep running?!

I did switch it up tonight and ran 2:1 intervals, which definitely matched my fitness level a little more. Regardless of how much I train, running for long periods of time is a big struggle. I'm hoping that eventually I'll get there, but for now, I've been focused on just covering distances and experimenting with intervals that feel good and give me the appropriate number of breaks so that I can catch my breath and stay strong. Last night I felt like the 3 minutes were a tad too long and I had to walk through the last minute of a few of them. Tonight, it was hard, but completely manageable. So much so, I'm actually a little sad tomorrow is my rest day. 

Hope you're training is going well! 

Until tomorrow - it's a rest day, but I'll be talking about my experience with shoes!