In summer 2010, encouraged by my coworker Teplyn, I did a 10K along the coast at the Rockland, Maine Lobsterfest. When I signed up for the 10K I had no intention of running it, I was just along for the ride. I planned to start out running and then end up walking, but once I started running I never stopped. It was at this run that I realized how exhilarating it was to run in a race.
So when my grad school friend Cat asked if anyone would join her in a half marathon in October 2011, I said sure, why the heck not? I ran a couple times a week for about 2 miles at a nearby park. I didn’t have a set running schedule, didn’t do a long run, and didn’t really watch what I ate. I just embraced the philosophy that the more often I ran, the better off I’d be.
That philosophy paid off pretty well. Cat and I finished in a little under 3 hours (2 hrs 50 minutes or so if I remember right), and we felt pretty good about that, considering it was our very first half marathon ever. (Cat was also extra kickass as she’d just given birth to her daughter in March that year.)
Cat continued to train and sign up for half marathons, but I dropped out of running in 2012 for financial reasons. I’d just moved and started student loan repayments and I had to readjust my finances to find extra money to pay for things that weren’t bills. Even though I was a half-marathon drop out for all of last year, Cat asked me about joining her in the OC half marathon this May. This time around I could afford to sign up for a half again, so I jumped right on board.
Cat created a modified half training schedule, based on a recommend training program she did for the Tinkerbell half marathon. Last week was week one of training and so far so good! The general philosophy of the plan is to run three times a week – two times on weekdays for 30 minutes each day, and then a longer untimed distance run once on the weekend. It’s a totally doable sounding plan so I’m giving it a shot.
Last week I missed the first 30 minute run, but I did the second one and did a 5.5 mile run on the weekend. Now on to week #2! I take a modern dance class on Saturday mornings, and I’m going to incorporate the stretching and warm up exercises from that class into my non-running weekdays. So this week looks like:
Monday: stretch and dance warm ups
Tuesday: 30 minute run
Wednesday: stretch and dance warm ups
Thursday: 30 minute run
Friday: rest
Saturday: sadly no dance class this week as I’m going on an all day Mojave desert adventure
Sunday: 3-4 mile run (untimed)
I’m approaching this half marathon more seriously and aiming to get the finish time down to 2 hours 30 minutes or less. Next up: running nutrition! I’m doing a little research and crafting a meal game plan that I’ll share in another post.
Illuminated Past 