20 Weeks

Here we are at the end of June and I'm already thinking about December. The Holiday Half Marathon to be more specific.

I have myself a new training plan which I will start on July 29. So until then I'll be doing my own willy-nilly training here and there, but will definitely keep up the same run schedule just to stay on track.

My desire to do a half marathon came in a very weird way. One of my friends at church asked me if I might be interested in joining the Living Water International team who would be participating in the Portland Marathon event - running the half. I thought about it for a minute or so, but not having done anything over a 12k before I was a little hesitant and suggested that she ask another friend of ours who has done a couple of half's in the last couple of years. As soon as she said that our other friend was interested, I became interested...DANG IT! As it turns out, this particular event will not be included in with the other events that we as a church are supporting. Maybe next year.

Now that the Portland Half Marathon is no longer a possibility, I have decided that I REALLY want to train for a half marathon! After doing some research for upcoming events, the one that seems pretty reasonable is the Holiday Half on December 15. I even have a reminder set for the day that registration begins! I'm VERY serious about this now! My new running plan starts at the end of July and I'm hoping that with adding a variety of cross-training and strength training workouts I'll continue to be motivated for the 20 weeks that lead up to the Holiday Half.

I have one month to start moving in the direction of better nutrition, cross-training/strength training and "maintenance" running. The next 4 weeks will give me a chance to get into re-vamping my thinking on what I eat and what I do when I don't run. During this time, I want to start making better choices in regards to the foods that I eat and that will help with maybe dropping a few pounds that I don't need to be hauling around while running. Which in the end will be kinder to my knees and shoes. Even being a little heavier runner can take the life out of running shoes quicker than those gazelles I see out on the road.

During those 20 weeks I'll will try to be diligent in posting here about how my training is going and hopefully I'll post the things that I think about while I'm on a run - because I often times will have a revelation of sorts, but once I sit down to write about that revelation, the thought is LOOOONG gone! Most of the time while I'm on a run, I'm trying to train my brain to not be so whimpy. Seriously, if something is a little uncomfortable, I'm no longer thinking happy thoughts. Just about being sore or in pain or whatever. In those times I try to remember past events - like my first duathlon and how I didn't stop running even though I really wanted to or  during this year's Shamrock run when I thought I would stop a second time, but saw how close I was getting to the end and just kept going AND actually increasing what little speed I had going at the time - or my first 5k at the last Livestrong event that we did before they moved to Seattle.

The point is, even though my body screams to stop, I know that I can finish the event well and finish strong. I'm no wimp!

We'll see how it goes when my training runs are 7, 8, 9 miles and longer. We'll find out what my capabilities are after many weeks of regular training.

SO Excited! Looking forward to pushing myself even more!