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Training So Far

I just realized that I have been training for my half marathon next month and I have not been updating ya’ll about it!  How silly of me!!  
Anyway,  I started training the beginning of March.  I have been following Hal Higdon’s Intermediate half-marathon training plan.  Well, let’s be honest.  I haven’t been following it exactly, except for the hill and speed workouts.  Those I have been following to a T, well mostly. I have added some hill repeats to some of the workouts and now towards the end of my half training it is all speed work, but I know the course I will be running and it’s hilly, so hill work is going to be a good thing still.  I have not been following the schedule for my weekend runs.  Saturdays call for very low miles sometimes at Pace and Sundays are a 90 minute run.  Well, I have been working really hard this winter to maintain some of my endurance from marathon training so I have been keeping my weekend long runs to at least 10 miles for each day unless we have a busy day or I sleep in.  Even if I sleep in, I am still able to get at least 7-8 miles in, sometimes 10 if we aren’t doing anything.  I don’t want to lose my endurance,  And trust me, these long runs have been up and down.  Some weekends I feel amazing and some not so much.  It’s just the nature of the beast.  Plus the weather we have been having in Wisconsin has been crazy!  It’s spring!!  It’s supposed to be getting warmer and that’s just not happening. We’ve had snow, sleet, and freezing temps.  I’m so ready for spring and warm weather.  
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Here are some pictures from the past 2 weekends’ long runs.  This weather!!  Man do I need it to be warmer sooner rather than later!!
As I’ve mentioned before I have been adding in more hill work.  I have a nice hill about 1.5 miles from my house at the high school that I run up and down.  So on these training days, I have a nice warm up running to the hill, do my repeats, and a nice cool down run back home.
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On this morning, it was freezing cold and I really didn’t want to be out in it running up and down the hill.  Although, I will admit that it was kinda nice since it helped me to cool down after the repeats.  I was sweating like a pig for sure and it would have been worse if it was warmer.  
Speed drills are another story.  I have a love / hate relationship with them.  I know they are necessary and I love how I feel afterwards, but they hurt!!  It’s good for me since I can finally feel like they are improving my running.  On my shorter runs, I feel like I am flying!  I love it!  I am hoping (and I can somewhat see it happening) that this will transfer over into my longer runs.  I think it did somewhat this Sunday with my speedy 7.  I have some mile times of 9:33 and 9:40.  I never have times like that when I’m running longer.  Well, I am going to continue to do these workouts to the best of my ability and continue to work on my speed. I just love running and being outside that pace and speed don’t usually matter that much to me.  Although, I still have it in the back of my head that one day I would like to run the Boston Marathon, so I am going to continue to push my speed to get better.  
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One thing that I love about speed drills is that I can do them on the street next to my house.  It’s a dead end so I can run up and down it and it’s a little over 400m.  I have some longer speed sessions coming up so I’m not sure if I will stay on this street or try to use my watch to judge the distance.  I wish the high school track was open to the public at 4:30 in the morning.  That would be perfect.
So overall training has been going really well and I am feeling really good about possibly breaking my 10K and half marathon PR’s the end of May!  If not, I will be satisfied knowing that I tried my best.  I have a half marathon next weekend, a 20K 2 weeks after that, and another 10K before the Madison Twilight 10K and Half Marathon weekend.  Those other races will be training-ish type runs for these last 2!  These are the ones I PR’d at last year so they are the ones I am shooting to PR again at! Plus they are just super fun to run!!  
I also ordered these beauties, except in blue for marathon training.  I am so excited to train in Hokas!!  I may have bought another pair of New Balance at Kohl's today as well!!  I know I have a problem!  I love running shoes and anything running related!  
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My kids even ran with me one day after school.  Well, they were on their bikes and I ran behind them!  It was so much fun!  I can see this happening a lot more this summer!

Until next time my friends, RUN ON!!!!
Laura

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