4 weeks out...!!!

Today marks 4 weeks until my half marathon. My. First. Half. Marathon. I feel like I am already getting nervous along with the super excitement that I've had since I signed up in November. I have been officially training since December 1st. And I was running with the intent to sign up for a race since before that. And now I am only 28 small days away from achieving a goal I've had for several years. I don't know why it took me so long to get motivated to do it, but I'm glad I did. Making a training schedule that I taped to the mirror on my dresser has helped me stay focused on my goal and on each run and cross training workout. I am the type to procrastinate and sometimes make excuses for not working out. But seeing that training schedule and crossing off each day has helped. Making myself mark through workouts I didn't do has helped me also to not want to skip them. I hate physically showing that I skipped a workout. It has helped so much. I will have to post a picture of the schedule with all the mark and changes. Its a mess.

Yesterday I had a 12 mile run. The furthest I had run before all of this training was 10 miles, and that was 5 years ago. The week before I had an 11 mile run which went ok. Not bad but not the pace I wanted either. the 12 miles yesterday though was wonderful. I had a 10:02 pace. My goal for the half marathon is a 10 minute pace. I was thrilled to only be 1.1 miles from the half marathon distance and accomplished my goal time. Well two seconds off, but honestly if I'm two seconds off in my race I won't care then either. At my race the half marathon and the full will run together for the first 10 miles. So my goal is to find the pacer for the full that has the 4 hour 20 minute time and stick with them. That is 10 minute miles and a 2 hour 10 minute half marathon time. The last couple of weeks I have been focusing alot on my shorter runs to make them faster. I also just found out that there are two tall hills in the first 7 miles, so I have been making sure I add more hills into my runs and I push myself up them instead of just shuffling slowly like I had been doing. I have seen improvement already at the shorter distances, and judging by my 12 mile run, it is starting to pay off for longer runs also.

This coming Saturday I am doing a 13 mile run. I will probably add the .1 and try to see how fast I can do it. However fast I do that training run, I will definitely want to beat that time in the race. I am excited and nervous for it. After that run though I start my taper! I have never done a taper before so I am hoping it goes well. When first making my training schedule I asked "why do I even need to taper?" But it is very necessary to not run the long miles before you do a long race. Your legs need to recover from the long runs. But, decreasing mileage does not mean to slack off on the intensity. If your taper is 3 weeks long and you start just doing easy runs, you are going to start losing muscle and endurance. The last week before my race I will run a little easier, with the last run before my race being very easy to just keep loose. I would have to say above all, listen to your body! If you feel you are taking it too easy, then make sure you are still doing intense workouts. Don't up the mileage again by much though. Or if you feel overtired, make sure you take it a bit easier and get plenty of rest. I think rest is the hardest thing for me. My two year old keeps me busy all day, and when she goes to sleep I tend to stay up late getting things done or just having some me time. My goal is for the two weeks leading up to the race to get to bed early every single night. And the week before the race I will be setting an alarm to wake up early. My race is at 7:30 which is when I usually wake up. I don't want to be super tired on race day because I am not used to a 5am wake up call.

Anyways, this post was kind of random but I tried to give some tips about prepping for race day, coming from someone who has never done a long race before. Just what I've read and what I think will be good. If you have any additional tips for me please share!! And keep running! :)