Training has started.
So yesterday was a rest day and today the raining for my half marathon has begun. Technically it started last week with a rest week but we’ll go with it. While starting 25 weeks in advance might sound like a lot or even a bit excessive you have to realize a few important things.
- First, I’m planning to run 3 other races before the half, 1 in February, and 2 in April (providing they don’t conflict with my half).
- Secondly, I’m working on skills and technique that will be needed to train for my marathon next year, and starting now will give me the ideal numbers for speed work and tempo runs when I do marathon training.
- Thirdly, I’m planning to add some serious cross training in January/February so starting early will allow me to take those months a bit easy if the boot camp drains me some weeks.
- Finally, I have two small children so it may be a struggle to get in all my long runs when I want to and starting early will ensure I get the kms I need done.
So today I did my first tempo run. My running BFF Cecilia is assigning me both my tempo run times and my speed runs so I don’t have to worry about it. I have given her my speeds and times and such, and she has used this data to provide me my run info.
And today was the first of many runs. This is being used to train me for long runs that I will need to do on my marathon, and half marathon. I started out running a warm up of 1 mile at 5.2mph, followed by 1.5 miles at 5.5mph which was the tempo run, and lastly I went 1 mile at 5.2mph. I found the run to be really challenging but in a good way. Normally I end up stepping off the treadmill a few times to hit the loo, refill my water, adjust things, and so on, but this run did not have any of that. I pushed it and did it!
So now I’m very proud of myself, though a little bit nervous about what my next tempo run will be. Next week will be speed work and I have another three runs to complete this week too.