So I thought I would blog about my adventures in training for my first half marathon. Mostly because I like to think things through via the written word and my blog has served as a really cool diary over the years. It will be really great to look back on this time later in the future. In other words, I’m mostly doing this for myself, but if you are reading this and are inspired/get anything good out of it, yay! Icing on the cake.

As I mentioned in an earlier post,  I am running the Boring Half Marathon in 14 weeks.  I scoured the internet for training programs and Settled on the Nike training plan.  I like it because it is very flexible and suitable for all levels of ability. I started it last week.

There are two days of speed work and one long endurance run. These are supplemented with “recovery.” Two of the recovery days you are to go for a short, mellow run. The other two days are for rest or cross training.

I started on Tuesday with speed work. The first day of speed work is to be done on a track but I decided to just go to the gym and use the treadmill. For each run you are supposed to stay within the parameters of your pace for a 5k. 10k. tempo run, etc. I thought it would be easier to monitor my pace as well as keep track of my laps on the treadmill. It worked well, aside from some technological hiccups (I’m forever having technology problems on my runs).

The second day of speed work were fartleks. I have never done fartleks before and wow. It was hard. I finally had to give up on keeping track of my pace and just go “a little faster” than I did during the recovery minute.

My endurance run for the week was 4 miles, which was a breeze for me since that is how far my everyday regular run is. Well, except for the fact that I had a migraine that morning. I sort of procrastinated it because I worried about running with such a horrible headache. But the drill seargent in me forced myself out the door and I managed it, but I took it real slow. Amazingly, the headache pain went away! But I still felt the nausea. I kept telling myself that I will likely have to endure discomfort when I run 13.1 miles, so this is just part of the training, running through discomfort.

Running is half psychological, I think. or a good portion, anyway.

I also managed the two extra runs during the week as well. So I did more running last week than I normally do. I and I am still alive. Let’s bring on Week 2!