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Saturday, August 22, 2009

Half mary

I think I've found my next goal: a half marathon. Why a half mary? When thoughts like "13.1" and "half-mary" and "remember that time you ran 12 miles?" keep popping into one's head, at some point, one has to listen. I haven't officially signed up for anything yet, nor I am solid on whether I even want to do it, but there's a nice race about halfway between Cleveland and Akron in some parkland in October that sounds very tempting. The race would be about six weeks away, but I am confident I could at least finish. Plus I think I've roped a friend into doing it as well!

Having no real idea on how to train for a 13.1 mile race, I consulted the Half Marathon Special article in the August '09 Runner's World. I have a very nice co-worker who lets me read her copies after she is finished with it! In the magazine, there's a beginner's half marathon plan. It seems quite doable, if we start with week 4 on this coming Monday, and with a few modifications. Namely, to sub out one of the XT workouts or the Monday run with interval training of some type. Surges, tempo runs, fartleks, etc., on the track. I am reserving at least one XT workout for swimming!

I did the 7 mile conversational pace run from week 3 today. Lesson learned: fuel properly BEFORE a run. I bonked a mere 20 minutes into the run and had to eat my emergency gel and walk a little. That managed to reverse it because about 10 minutes later I felt perfectly fine and finished the rest of the run without a problem except for stumbling after tripping over an uneven sidewalk slab. My inner-ring suburb is old enough to have slate sidewalks, which don't always lie perfectly flat!

3 comments:

  1. Unfortunately what I've come to find with doing this more and more is how important nutrition and fuel is!

    Looking at that schedule, I think you could even tolerate turning the Weds run into intervals. The trick is to not have two hard sessions in a row, and since you are XTing on both Tues and Thurs, you'd have easy days already then. Just my 2 cents though!

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  2. So I bought the half marathon edition of Runner's World and didn't think it was worth it because almost all of it is posted online. Their website has many other plans, and I've kind of combined them along with others (and adaptations of swimming sets) to make a training plan. But I'll use that in winter; this fall I'm going to get back into racing (not that I've ever really been a competitive runner) and going for PR's in 5k's and maybe throwing in a 10k or 10 mile for fun.

    Anyway, good luck!

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  3. @ amy,
    Good call. We're definitely subbing in some track work. Gotta bond with the oval. ;)

    @ HungryGrad,
    Yeah, I realized that later. I wonder why they put so much online? Doesn't seem the strongest business plan. I am also tossing around the idea of going for a 5k PR... my fastest time was from my first 5k at Applefest freshman year!

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