Half Marathon: Challenge Accepted

Those of you who I know personally probably know this since I posted to social media, but if you haven’t heard I made the leap this week and signed up for a half marathon! I've been looking at races for almost a month now. I was going to look for a 10k since the only race I've done is a 5k, but I realized I was already running 10k or more on my long runs and could aim higher.

Then I dragged my feet looking for a half marathon, and also overestimated how much time I’d need to prepare. There is one that looked good in late January in Celebration, but I will probably be in Philadelphia that weekend for work. Once I counted out weeks I realized I could still get in 11-13 weeks of training if I did a race in December. I almost feel like fate had a hand in this because when I looked there was a half marathon right herein Orlando on Saturday, December 7^th. I love that it’s on a Saturday so I will have Sunday to recover. My goal is just to finish because I really have no idea what my time could be at this point. I am running my long runs around a 10 minute mile pace and that feels comfortable, but I don’t know how my legs will hold up after more than 7.5 miles!

I have started to do some preparations both in buying essentials and building a good training plan. I was going to buy a half marathon training plan but after spending money on the race entry, compression socks, a water vest, compression shorts, and a foam roller I was a little hesitant. Some friends online recommended good free sources, and I consulted about 5 to make this plan. My plan is basically a combination of Hal Higdon’s program and Anne from Fannetastic Food’s program. I usually run 3 days a week and strength train 3 days a week. On my rest days I've been doing yoga, so I guess they’re not truly rest days.

This plan will be interesting because I will be tapering off my strength training (but still fitting some in), adding a true rest day each week, and doing a weekly bike ride for cross training. I made the initial plan to do a 3 run week and then a 4 run week. If the 4 runs feel like they’re too taxing I plan to switch to all 3 run weeks. I’m excited, scared, nervous, and overwhelmed but looking forward to having a goal in mind.

Here’s the plan I came up with:

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
strength 1	rest/walk	easy run - 3.5	intervals - 3.5	rest	long run - 8	strength intervals
yoga	3m easy	3m speed	3m splits/pace	rest	long run 7	crosstrain
yoga	4m intervals	cross/strength	4m splits/pace	rest	long run 8	crosstrain
yoga	3m easy	3m speed	3m splits/pace	rest	long run 8	crosstrain
yoga	4m intervals	cross/strength	4m splits/pace	rest	long run 7 pace	crosstrain
yoga	2m easy	3m speed	3m splits/pace	rest	long run 9	crosstrain
yoga	3m intervals	cross/strength	5m splits/pace	rest	long run 10	crosstrain
yoga	4m easy	3m speed	5m splits/pace	rest	long run 7 pace	crosstrain
yoga	4m intervals	cross/strength	4m splits/pace	rest	long run 12	crosstrain
yoga	3m easy	2m speed	3m splits/pace	rest	long run 10	crosstrain
yoga	2m pace	2m easy	rest	rest	RACE DAY	rest