It’s kind of strange to think that, 14 months ago, I had not even dreamed of running a half marathon. I don’t think that I even believed it was attainable. I mean, 13.1 miles? At that point, I had never run more than five miles at a time.
But sometimes, peer pressure is a good thing.
It was through the encouragement of my friend/supervisor, Candace, that I decided to sign up for the 2012 Pittsburgh Half Marathon. The months of training were tough, but it was all worth it when I crossed the finish line on May 6, 2012.
Half marathon? Check.
Even though the half marathon was intense, as soon as I finished I already couldn’t wait for my next one.
When I started getting e-mails from the Pittsburgh Marathon people about this year’s half marathon, I definitely wanted to sign up, but I wanted to make sure I had someone else to go with me and/or run the race, too. I mean, driving five-plus hours, finding a fun place to carb-load, and staying in a downtown hotel are all a lot more fun with someone else.
This year (and I’m REALLY excited about this), that “someone else” will be my mom! She and I had talked on and off since my 2012 half marathon about how maybe she would want to try a race like that sometime. So she bit the bullet and registered a few months ago, and I signed up shortly after. We’ve run a few other (5K) races together, but this one will be memorable for sure.
After our first 5K in September 2011
After shelling out a depressingly memorable amount of money for the race registration and hotel, we began to devise a training plan.
I mainly operated off my nine-week plan from last year, which I really liked: Each week consisted of two short runs, a day of cross-training, two days of rest, a long run, and (on alternating weeks) either interval workouts or hill training.
One issue with last year’s plan was that doing interval workouts every two weeks and hill training every two weeks was too infrequent, and I felt like I wasn’t reaping the maximum benefits. Still, I didn’t want to cut either one out this year.
I decided to make one of my short runs into a hill training day. Hill training is basically running up and down a hill for a set distance, so…instead of doing a short run (three to five miles) on a track or somewhere relatively flat, I’ll knock out that same distance by running up and down a hill. It’s foolproof.
Mom and I have mainly been doing our weekday training on our own, but we’re doing our weekend long runs (which increase by one mile each week) together. Candace has been joining us for most of them, which is cool.
We just finished Week 3 of training, so here’s what it has looked like for me so far:
Week 1:
Monday, 3/4: VERY light cross-training (I was fresh back from a winter mountaineering trip to New Hampshire; I’m hoping there will be more on that in a future post)
Tuesday, 3/5: 3 mi hills
Wednesday, 3/6: Rest (with weightlifting)
Thursday, 3/7: 4 mi
Friday, 3/8: Rest (with weightlifting)
Saturday, 3/9: 2X400 IW (Have I mentioned how much I can’t stand interval workouts? Yet I do them anyway. I started off very small with these so I’d get used to them.)
Sunday, 3/10: 6 mi (with Mom and Candace)
Total Week 1 miles: 14
Six miles? Been there. Done that.
Week 2:
Monday, 3/11: 4 mi
Tuesday, 3/12: Rest
Wednesday, 3/13: Rest (I hate taking two rest days in a row, so this was not intentional. I had an incredibly – and unexpectedly – busy day and couldn’t fit any training in! *sad face*)
Thursday, 3/14: 3 mi hills
Friday, 3/15: 20 min cross-training (exercise bike)
Saturday, 3/16: 7 mi (with Mom and Candace in the snow! Well, flurries…)
Sunday, 3/17: 3X400 IW (I’m hoping that, by doing these every week, I’ll start dreading them less.)
Total Week 2 miles: 15.5
Week 3:
Monday, 3/18: 30 min cross-training (exercise bike)
Tuesday, 3/19: 4 mi (with Mom)
Wednesday, 3/20: 3X400 IW (Still not enjoying these…)
Thursday, 3/21: 3 mi hills
Friday, 3/22: Rest
Saturday, 3/23: 8 mi
Sunday, 3/24: 1 mi
Total Week 3 miles: 17.5
Still smiling after 8 hilly miles
Total miles of training so far: 47.
Bring on Week 4 and beyond!
Operation Life 