So I have been so consumed with 1/2 Marathon Training since April that I have totally neglected this blog and I apologize immensely for that. I am still getting the hang of this blogger thing and I really want to be more open with my running and fitness struggles so with that being said this is probably going to be a long post.
APRIL
April began with signing up for the Boston Marathon World Run where you could pledge money and miles for a number of charities. I chose The One Fund Boston as my charity. I ended up pledging and running 50.44 miles between April 13 to 21. I enjoyed running during this week and remembering those that were touched by the tragedy that occurred during last years' Boston Marathon. I am going to admit it here also that I was totally consumed with the Boston Marathon on Monday April 21. I walked around classrooms with my Ipad all day watching the finishers. It was remarkable and made me long so much for running this historic and beautiful race one day. This, I think, is what brought on part of my obsession with training for my half. It's really all I have been thinking about!
My only official race in April was the Pace for Parkinson's 5K on April 26. This also happened to be my son's 4th Birthday. It was a great day with not such a great race. I had gotten into the habit while running this winter of automatically putting my compression sleeves on whether or not I needed them. I was doing fine with that for awhile and would only experience some tightness in my calves for the first 3ish miles of a run. I thought this was normal and just something that I would have to deal with and push through. However, come race day, when I wore my red compression sleeves since they matched my outfit, my calves basically locked up within the first mile. They were so ridiculously tight that I had to take more walking breaks than I care to think about. I felt really good to start with and took off way to fast as I normally do, but it quickly went south from there. The massive hill on the course really killed me. I ran up it but then had to walk around the turnaround before I could jog back down. It was so sad and I felt awful. I really wanted a PR for my son's birthday and that just wasn't happening today. I finished with a time of 31:27. :( I have done so much better than that in previous races. It was then that I vowed to give up my compression sleeve obsession. I will only use them for post-run recovery and not while running unless I feel they will help. It has made a huge difference in my running since!!
1/2 Marathon Training
My only official race in April was the Pace for Parkinson's 5K on April 26. This also happened to be my son's 4th Birthday. It was a great day with not such a great race. I had gotten into the habit while running this winter of automatically putting my compression sleeves on whether or not I needed them. I was doing fine with that for awhile and would only experience some tightness in my calves for the first 3ish miles of a run. I thought this was normal and just something that I would have to deal with and push through. However, come race day, when I wore my red compression sleeves since they matched my outfit, my calves basically locked up within the first mile. They were so ridiculously tight that I had to take more walking breaks than I care to think about. I felt really good to start with and took off way to fast as I normally do, but it quickly went south from there. The massive hill on the course really killed me. I ran up it but then had to walk around the turnaround before I could jog back down. It was so sad and I felt awful. I really wanted a PR for my son's birthday and that just wasn't happening today. I finished with a time of 31:27. :( I have done so much better than that in previous races. It was then that I vowed to give up my compression sleeve obsession. I will only use them for post-run recovery and not while running unless I feel they will help. It has made a huge difference in my running since!!
1/2 Marathon Training
I began training for my first official half marathon this month as well. Let me tell you I have logged a bunch of miles training for this half. Due to my hubs work schedule and wanting to earn more money for vacation, most of my training runs took place on my treadmill except for hills. I actually really liked using my treadmill for the speed work outs since I had better control of my speed. I have a really hard time controlling my speed when I'm outside. I am a terrible judge of speed, which probably explains my lead foot when I drive! Hill repeats happened on the hill by my town's high school. It's a decent size hill with a nice incline. I would typically do these training runs in the evenings and there would be sporting events going on at the high school. I'm sure the parents and high schoolers thought I was crazy running up and down the hill what felt like a thousand times. So worth it though, because when I would go out for my long distance easy paced runs, I was able to run faster and longer without feeling too sore. I love that my legs are becoming super strong and muscular from running!! I still love my P90X and have incorporated that into my training so that not only am I becoming a stronger runner, but an overall more fit woman!! I love that I have goals that I want to reach and am slowly working my way towards them! It's such an awesome feeling!
Run on my friends!!
Run on my friends!!
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