In the last week I started a specific training plan for running a half-marathon in 2-months. Some people think it’s insane to run 13.1 miles. On some days I agree with them, but most of the time after my run I feel great, even if while running I feel like hell. My workouts in the last week consisted of this:
Monday – bike ride for 14-miles
Tuesday – ran 3X1600, so I ran 1-mile 3 times, broken up by walks, this helps build speed.
Wednesday – I rode my bike for 10-miles and did 30-minutes of abs to work on my core.
Thursday – bike for 10-miles
Friday – ran 5-miles
Saturday – 30-minutes of abs for my core
Sunday – ran 10-miles
Now looking at my past week I want to break a few things down, first my biking is to and from work so it is actually 2 bike rides that equal that distance. Some days I leave from home and some days from day care. I think the biking has really helped my endurance for the running, but it still doesn’t help when I get to that time in the run when I just want to be done and I don’t have the ability to coast for a minute.
But I have a goal and plenty of motivation. First, there’s that extra weight I’m trying to shed, it’s being stubborn but I have finally lost 3 pounds, then there is the fact that I’m running a half marathon at the end of September “ready or not”, and last there is the fact that I put the challenge out to myself on Factoidz. It is a big motivator to tell people you’ll keep them updated.
The hardest thing for me to do is to keep going sometimes. Even when I’m doing fine. The run is going fine, I’m going at a pace that could continue for a long, long distance, but I’m bored or I’m thinking about all the other things I could be doing. Right now I’m breaking it down into small pieces. I’m running 10, then when I get to 5, I can celebrate inside my head because I’m half way there. I break it down by the amount of time it will take me to. For example today I was running and thinking okay 80-minutes to go, and once I passed that even when there was still 77-minutes I had my eye on the next goal, 70-minutes to go. Because it really is a mind game. When it comes down to it, our thoughts are what hold us back so release those bad thought and focus on the good ones.
It’s time to move into week 2:
This week I’ll be running 6×400 to work on my speed. On www.runnersworld.com they call this my speed work run. The speed work run is to start off with a 20-minute jog and then I’ll go into my 6×400 with a 2-minute recovery in between my 400’s. When I’m done it will be a 10-minute cool down.
Then I’ll be doing a 6-mile tempo run, which is done at a little slower pace than the race run, I think I said that wrong last week. But it is 15-seconds slower than your race run.
And my big run next week is a 6-mile run as well. That run is done at 30 seconds slower than race run. Of course I have to throw in core work and I’ll be riding my bike on the days I’m able to.
So time to lace up for week 2 on my journey to 13.1.
