One of my New Years Resolutions for 2014 was to run a 5km race. That might not seem like a big deal to most people but to me, a girl without a sporty or athletic bone in her body, it was equivalent to deciding to tackle Everest. The pain of those first few runs is a memory I don’t want to relive. But then something odd happened. I experienced some of those ‘endorphin’ things that I had heard people talking about and I wanted more. So I kept running and at this point have completed several races. My times aren’t great but I’ve been loving the buzz and feeling of accomplishment on raceday and I have decided to tackle a half-marathon in September.
I am using the Hal Higdon Novice 2 plan as it is most in keeping with my life and routine. At this point I am on Week 6 though I will admit it has taken me 8 weeks to get here! This is because on two of those weeks I had races scheduled that were slightly shorter than the long run for the week. So I just repeated the week in order to ensure I had covered all of the miles before moving on to longer distances. The plan was a little shorter than the time I had to prepare so this is working well.
Initially I found the adjustment from 3 days of training per week to 5 very difficult. My body was sore and tired and I felt like it was consuming my life. I gradually got used to it though and am fitting the sessions into my schedule much more easily. I have also taken up spinning classes on my cross-training day and love them!
The only problem is that, 6 weeks in, I am more daunted by the half-marathon than ever. Lets hope the plan works!
blushandlaughter 