Half-Marathon Training: Week One

Brian decided that he wanted to do something monumental to celebrate his upcoming 40th birthday.  A few months back, he mentioned that he would like to run a marathon this year.  He asked me if I thought he could do it.  Now, I don't want to be dream crusher, but I also don't want to be a widow.  I sweetly suggested that maybe he should start with a half-marathon, since he has yet to run an entire 5K.  Being the reasonable soul that he is, Brian decided a half-marathon was a worthy goal.

Fast forward to a month or so ago and we both registered to run/walk/crawl the Savannah Rock-n-Roll Half-Marathon on November 5.  I am super excited about the race.  It has been over a year since I finished the Princess Half-Marathon at Disney World. A number of my favorite people are running the race, so it should be a really fun day. 

Last Saturday was twelve weeks until race day!  Most race training plans are twelve weeks long.  On Monday, I decided that it was time to get serious about training, so I can finish the race in a respectable amount of time.  At the moment, I am doing run/walk intervals, since my body hasn't quite recovered from the injuries brought on during my last pregnancy.  I figure it will be better to finish in one piece than have to have hip replacement surgery in November!  Anyway, I ran/walked three miles on Monday and Wednesday and did cross training on Tuesday and Friday.  This brings us to Saturday morning.

On Saturday morning, I was set to run/walk four miles according to the training plan.  My plan was to get up early and go out before it got too hot out.  Unfortunately, I ended up staying in the bed until almost 9 a.m., so it was just a few minutes before 9 a.m. when I downed some water and then headed out the door.  I had set my Garmin up to time my intervals, so I can work on building up to longer run intervals.  The first twelve of sixteen intervals went pretty quickly.  Then, the sun started to really blaze and I started to get a little weary of running around my hilly neighborhood.

I was nearing the end on my 15th running interval when I had to go straight uphill for a long stretch.  At this point, I was tired and cursing myself for not bringing along some water.  I was about halfway up the hill when I thought to myself - "Am I walking or running right now?"  I was technically running, but it was so slow, I might have done myself a favor by walking! When I made it home and checked the stats on my Garmin, I had actually logged over 4.5 miles and burned closed to 800 calories.  If I had done a better job calculating my run/walk intervals, I might could have saved myself from that awful hill at interval 15.

One week down, eleven to go!