Weekly Run Recap

I have 96 days until the half-marathon. 96 days!?! That puts the marathon a little more than 13 weeks away. Practically within my sights. While that makes me feel a little anxious, I know that I have not gone into this without a prepared plan. I've built up a good foundation of miles, and now it's time to get really serious and implement the half-marathon training program.

I won't challenge myself with promising to post each time I put in a workout; I already do a quick log on DailyMile.com. Although I will continue to blog about my races and any runs that were particularly meaningful, interesting, or that began with brilliant pep talks from my almost 4-year-old. (Tangent: Last night I was heading out, and he says to me, "Have a good run, Mommy! Don't bonk into any people!" Good advice son... Remind me to stop showing him the mud run pics when I'm literally running in a mob of people.) Anyway, I would like to do a weekly recap.

So, here's my recapping of the last week.

Last week was a pretty bad running week for me. After the mud run on Saturday, a few of us met up at the track on Sunday evening to see where we were at for a mile full out. I ran the first mile with a friend of mine aiming for an 8:00 mile, but we came in at 8:43. Considering just 3 months ago, he hadn't run in almost 20 years, this is pretty damn impressive! Andrew, meanwhile, ran his mile in 6:06. He's a stud. Then I ran one for me, and my best was 7:54, and that was really pushing it for me. (Probably not wise to see where you are at when you just finished dragging yourself through quicksand, but whatevs.) Still did that ever make me wonder how I ever used to run them consistently around 7:00 when I was in high school.

I took Monday as a day off from running and found a few core workouts to do on Exercise TV. While the rest of me has shrunk significantly, my abs are still not bikini ready.

Tuesday night, Andrew and I headed out for our standard 10K route. I felt horrible, but didn't put the pieces together until Wednesday that I felt pummeled because of the DOMS from Monday's workout. As we were running, my legs, my hips, my shoulders all felt like I was still running through the mud. Thanks to Andrew, I pushed through, with a decent time and everything, but it felt just crappy.

Planned to run a nice light 3 miles on Thursday night, but my new running partner rescheduled for Friday. Then with the big rig fire on the 91 on Friday, and Craig getting stuck in Orange County until 10pm, we weren't able to meet up. Saturday was K's big 4th birthday party, and though I swore I was going for a run that night after eating my second piece of birthday cake, I went to bed instead. (I know.... bad.)

Last night, though, I did finally make it out for a solo run. I felt pretty good at first, but my ipod was doing a random music shuffle. I have a running playlist which is fun upbeat music that I run to, but that has also become really predictable. I've gotten to the point where I can judge how my pace is doing based on where I am at and what song I am on. I keep saying I'm going to update it, but I haven't taken the time. In a way it was good that it was shuffling the songs, but it was throwing me off a little. And then right at the halfway point, my ipod battery died. At first I was a little upset, but then it became sort of nice just running to the sound of my shoes on the pavement, my breathing, the music from neighborhood parties. Oh, and a very special Thank You to the guy in the big truck who yelled "RUNNNNN!" and scared the *bleep* out of me. Anyway, I didn't get my exact mileage or final time, but I had been running about 8:45/mi so I logged it as 9 min miles. Not terrible at all. Just need to get to the point where I feel stronger while covering this distance.

So total miles for the week: 23 miles
Total workouts: 1 core training, 3 runs
Not too bad. But now it's time to get more consistent and more focused. 13 weeks may sound like a lot of time, but I really want to run this half-marathon well. Strong. And have fun all at the same time. It is Disneyland afterall... So I know that at least the portion of the course that is in Disneyland, I'm sure to have a goofy grin glued to my face. I can't help it.

I'll start day one of the 12 week program tomorrow. Do a repeat of a week somewhere in the middle so I am perfectly tapering for race day. 96 days and counting.