Training begins…and its rough in 40-degree weather!

Well hello, there!

I’m so sorry I’ve left y’all high and dry for the last month. I’m only going to say that I thoroughly enjoyed December and the major events that occurred during it – Mexi’s wedding, Gilly and Co.’s big Christmas party, Christmas and New Years. Oh yeah! And Croft started walking!! That was very exciting for me to get to see, on New Years Day.

Ok, so – Happy New Year! My training for the half marathon, and the one following it 3 weeks later, officially began on Monday, January 4th. I have 16 full weeks until the half marathon in Nashville, which I registered for a few days before the price increase. Boe, my amazing ATL friend, is registering next week. Sad news from Gilly – she will be unable to participate in the half, but is going to join me on the trip and cheer us on! I will miss her on my runs (no, this is not a guilt trip!!).

A while back, Gilly found a training schedule online at Hal Higdon’s website. It looked great, and he’s a professional runner, so we thought this was the best to use. And it is. My friend JAM and I had dinner on Sunday (refer to post “SLACK is spelled J-E-N-N-Y” for more info on this friend) and had a great time. We talked about lots of stuff, but the reason behind our dinner outing was that I wanted to get his advice and help on my training. Of course, I forgot my training schedule, but JAM asked me to send it to him the next day and also to update him weekly with how my runs were going. So not only did he agree to be my running “mentor”, he took my training schedule and expanded it from a 12-week schedule to a 16-week schedule to fit perfectly from now until April 24th. He also pointed me to a great website that lets you map any route you want and shows you the length in tenths of miles. It’s really neat – check it out if you’re just starting like me and have no idea where to run around your area. I have mapped about 5 routes since Monday.

I will post the schedule in the next post, because I can’t figure it out right now. I want everyone to know exactly what I’m doing everyday, so that if, at any given time in the next 16 weeks, anybody (and by anybody, I mean the 10 people who read this blog) can ask me what I did in the way of training that day, I will have to tell them. Because they’ll know what I was supposed to have done and they’ll know if I’ve done it. Because I’m a terrible liar. So, I invite YOU (yes, you!), to keep me on my toes and ask me about my training e.v.e.r.y.d.a.y. I’m going to tell you right now what I’ve done so far, since I don’t have the schedule posted yet. Monday, I did stretch and strengthen. Stretches – easy. Strengthen – easy. The last “strength” exercise was lunges. KILL ME NOW. I am STILL sore and it hurts to stand up and sit down from my chair at work. Tuesday (yesterday) I went for a 2.5 mile run. I was supposed to do 3, but I made an error in calculation. Easily fixed. It was 39-degrees when I started, but I was honestly not that cold. Today I was scheduled for either 2 miles or cross-training. Since I have no bike and my sister/tennis partner is incapacitated right now having had leg surgery 3 weeks ago and her appendix out last night, I chose to compromise and run 1 mile. It was cold.

Tomorrow is 3 miles again. Saturday is 4. I promise promise promise to keep you updated with (at least) weekly updates on my training.

WISH ME LUCK!!

xoxo