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Thursday, September 26, 2013

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 7th. 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


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