Training went GREAT! I followed an 11-ish week training plan that began around the last week of February/ first week of March. This plan focused more on increasing speed than my last plan, so there was speedwork/ tempo runs once a week. Guess what? Speedwork WORKS! I assumed that my speed was always going to be around 13 min/miles because even that speed used to feel hard.
This training cycle, I *really* wanted to beat last year's half marathon time, so I knew the only way to do that would be to:
A) shed a few pounds, and
B) start making myself run faster
Turns out I am capable of much more than I thought! A few weeks before I started training, I began really focusing on eating better. I have never been a super terrible eater, but I know I was doing a fair amount of mindless eating that kept me from seeing any weight loss. After one final hurrah at a Super Bowl party (because, come on, eating healthy at a Super Bowl party sounds like pretty much the worst thing ever), I started using the "myfitnesspal" app and website.
It.is.awesome. Sure, the hard work is all on me, but the app/website make it as easy as possible to track calories. Basically, I entered in that I wanted to lose 2 lbs/ week, entered my weight, and my activity level. It determined that I was allowed 1200 calories a day (GASP! THAT'S IT???), BUT, I could also add whatever calories I burned with exercise (WHEW, that's better).
My starting weight: 176 (eek! though I think perhaps elevated by a couple of pounds due to post superbowl party binge water retention).
My current weight: 152! SLOWWWWW and steady. I get impatient some weeks, because it feels like I am working my butt off, and some weeks I don't lose an ounce. Actually, my pattern is to lose a couple of pounds, then nothing for about 2 weeks, then a couple more pounds. In the past, I've let impatience get the best of me, but I just have to keep working at it. I am finally officially at my pre-all-of-my-pregnancies-weight. Now just another 15 lbs till I am at the weight I was when we started TRYING to get pregnant with Max. (yep, that's right- I kind of went loosey-goosey on my eating in the 10 months it took for us to conceive Max...I kept thinking, oh well, I'm going to be pregnant any minute now! Hence, 15 pound pre-conception weight gain. Oops)
It also turns out that losing a few pounds makes it WAY easier to run a faster pace! I was shocked one day when I went out to run a "slow, easy pace" and I looked down at my Garmin to discover I was running 11:00 min/miles. Like I said, last year, my "slow, easy pace" was somewhere in the 13:00 min/mile pace- and even that felt hard at times.
I was able to PR in the St Patrick's Day 5k at a time of 32:17- a pace of around 10:23. AND it was hot and humid that day. Crazy!!
Anyway, I didn't do anything fancy in terms of speedwork. I did one day a week of speed- either a timed tempo run or quarter mile intervals. Some weeks I skipped speedwork if my legs were feeling tired as I was trying to avoid injury this time around.
Speaking of injury! NO injury at all this training cycle! No hip problems, no shin splints, no ankle pain! I suspect that is due to having a solid year of running under my belt and a few less pounds to carry.
I followed my training plan pretty closely, but it was a pretty run-heavy plan (5 days a week of running)... most plans have 4 plus a day of XT. So there were some weeks I skipped a run to save my legs.
I had great training partners again, which was awesome. Nicole and Michele were my long run buddies, which made it WAY easier to get the long runs done. This time around I did my long run at 7am on Saturday mornings. It's super early for me to go run, but it felt awesome to get up and get it out of the way! I kind of dread long runs, and if I put them off, it ruins my weekend until they're done. I actually started to look forward to waking up early on Saturdays. Wowzer.
Whew, okay, so this was JUST going to be a quick recap on the actual half marathon, but looks like I just wrote a novel about the training. Next blog post (to be posted maybe sometime in this decade) will recap how the race went!
And THEN........ and THEN....... get ready for it......
Starting one week from tomorrow, I officially start an 18 week MARATHON training plan. I am going to run the Twin Cities Marathon on October 7th. I've officially gone to the dark side. I've pretty much lost my mind. And I couldn't be more excited to do this! I am going to commit to blogging at least once a week to recap my training (no, seriously!)
Okay, I'm off to drink some fluids and pop some pills! Strep throat has invaded my body, and I'm feeling mis-er-a-ble. I have been in my pajamas pretty much since Friday night (it's Sunday night now). Feel sad for me? You should.
No comments:
Post a Comment