February 10, 2010

Training for the Half Marathon

This past week or so, I've been considering training for that half-marathon I've talked about doing and have wanted to do for a long time. I was chatting with a running buddy on facebook this a.m., and she ran a half-marathon last August while I did a 5K instead (at the time I was still pregnant, with a non-viable pregnancy at the time but I was unaware). This isn't my buff friend, but at that race, I met up with an old acquaintance who runs and we've chatted about running since. My 5K time is better than hers, but she can run 4 times as far as I can. There is a half coming up May 1st and she suggested a half-marathon training program that she is going to use. It's actually one you do on a treadmill, which is good, since that's where I'll be doing most of my running. Running outside is a bit different than running on a treadmill, so I'm hoping since this is one designed for training on the treadmill in order to run a road race, that it will work. It doesn't look too bad and it's a 12 week program. And I can start at week 3 because I've been running 5K (3.1 miles) pretty easily every time I run. So we'll see if I can keep myself motivated and push myself to keep running. I will have to adjust my pace because there's no way I can run 13 miles at my 5K pace. I know I won't be running fast or winning any race, but to just be able to do it would be awesome. There is always the chance that I'll have to put my training on hold should I get pregnant before then (since we're not using any form of birth control), but I will continue to run as I'm able. I had said at one point that if/when I do get pregnant again that I would stop running, but as time has gone on, I realize with my head and heart that running didn't cause the miscarriage. That was the hard part, convincing my heart that I didn't cause it. In my mind I understood that, but it's harder to convince the heart. Should pregnancy occur, I'll won't be hanging up my running shoes. So it's on with half-marathon training and a 4 mile run today. Wish me luck!

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