Week 7: 21.5 miles

WEEK SEVEN!! It just hit me that the half marathon is in less than 2 weeks; I scheduled my training to last 9 weeks! Eeek! I'm actually super proud of myself for (mostly) sticking to the training schedule. Yes, I skipped a lot of the cross-train days. But I've definitely become a distance runner, and that's something I never thought I'd become. In fact, even when I was consistently running races in the 2nd half of college, I never considered myself a runner at all. When I go for "runs" I consider then more "jogs" than anything else. But now I think I'm admitting to myself that by running 3+ times a week, with long runs upwards of 10 miles, I've become a runner despite myself. Go figure.

Sun Apr 11: rest

Tues Apr 13: 45min hill run on treadmill, max speed 7.0mph, max incline 5.0. Approx 4.5 miles. This totally kicked my ass. Treadmills are so boring when you do more than 30 minutes.

Wed Apr 14: 5 hour rehearsal for our senior musical, including about 1 hour of dancing

Thurs Apr 15: 1 hour dance rehearsal, followed by 55 min on a treadmill (~5min walking). Covered about 5.5 miles, avg speed about 6.5mph

Fri Apr 16: 1 hour dance rehearsal

Sat Apr 17: fight scene practice. This included doing some tumbling, which I haven't really done in 5 years. I was exhausted afterwards, and I'm STILL SORE.

Sun Apr 18: 11.5 miles in DC! Eric & I ran from his current apartment to our new neighborhood, then got lost and got in a fight about my getting mad about getting lost, and then made up and ran through Rock Creek Park back to Georgetown, where we stopped for some Iceberry (Pinkberry wannabe) before jogging the last 1 mile home. We walked about 1 mile total (mostly while fighting, hee). We were out for about 2.5 hours and I think a solid 2 hours of that was spent running.


I think we're officially ready to taper and run the half! Hooray!

Week 6: 20 miles

The beginning of week 6 was spent in DC. I took an 8-hour train back to Pittsburgh on Tuesday, and jumped right back into the lazy life that is vacation month... that is, utter morning freedom followed by evening rehearsals that stretch late into the night.

Apr 5: 45min mod - we ended up running about 1.5mi in 12 minutes, then walked a little over 2.6mi home. We were tired from the long weekend run in Kansas.

Apr 7: 50min easy - did about 50min on a treadmill at 6.0-7.0 pace. Probably about 5.5mi total

Apr 10: 10mi conv - went to Frick Park and ran trails. I thought there was a 9-mi trail there (there's a trail called "Nine Mile Run"), but there wasn't (it's not finished). So I ran for 1:50:56, with two long walking breaks of 3min or so due to the INTENSE hills and the chewing of the Luna Moons (see below), figuring I had covered 10 miles in 1:40 or so. When I came home I looked up the trail guide and sure enough I covered just over 10 miles. Annoyingly, the trails aren't able to be entered on Gmaps Pedometer or Map My Run because they aren't on the city streets, and the satellite view is dense with trees. Grr!

Anyway, on Saturday's long run I tried these Luna Moons, which are electrolyte replacement in chewy gummi form. They were gross and stuck to my teeth. I did not like. I had to walk for like 5 extra minutes as I chewed and ran my tongue over my teeth and washed away the sticky sweetness with what little Gatorade was left in my bottle. I think I'll stick with Gu.

Week 5: 19 miles

This was a week spent in DC, with a weekend trip to Kansas City. One of the revelations I've made during this training has been that travel does not mean a vacation from running. It may mean that cross-training is harder to do (no gym, no time or space for DVD workouts), but running is free, and as long as I have my legs and some pavement, I'm good to go.

Mar 28: rest
Mar 29: 45min mod - ~4.5 mi seriously uphill-then-downhill run from Rosslyn to Clarendon and back. Took ~43 minutes.
Mar 31: 50min easy - ran approx 5mi on the treadmill with speeds 5.0mph - 7.0mph, 5.5 total including walking for cool down.
Mar 31, Apr 1: walked a LOT on the apartment hunt. I think we walked approx 5 miles per day.
Apr 3: 9mi conv - ~9.1 mi loop in flat, sunny Kansas. Total time: 1:36:57, which included a 5:21 break after 6.5 miles.

I was SUPER proud of us for the 9-miler. We could have easily skipped this week's long run and chalked it up to an extremely busy week of birthdays, Passover, apartment hunting, and traveling. But we did it, and we did it well.

But I was starving for 3 days and my legs felt like lead, I'll say that much :)

Week 4: 12 miles

Last week/this week, I shifted my running schedule from a Monday-Sunday week to a Sunday-Saturday week. So this week I had 1 less day. This happened to coincide with a "light" week that included more rest days (much needed with all the travel), so this week was low on mileage.

Mar 23: 2.5 hours of dance rehearsal for our senior musical
Mar 24: 50min moderate run - 5.4mi run in Squirrel Hill, and 2.5 hours of dance rehearsal for our senior musical
Mar 27: 6.8mi run to the Mall, coinciding with the Cherry Blossom Festival - approx 66 min. DC running is quite nice!

Next weekend is a 9miler in Kansas, and will be our longest run yet! I'm hoping for good weather and flat trails. Fingers crossed!

Week 3: 22 miles

What a crazy week! I drove back from Philly, actually had to do work for class, MATCHED!, and flew to California for whirlwind wedding planning. Eric, the overachiever he is, had a bachelor party thrown in on top of all of that! Somehow we managed to run. I've been shuffling around the training runs because of our crazy schedule, but I'm hoping to get back to the normal routine this week. Happy running!

• Mar 16: 40min conv - really this was moderate - ran 4.8mi hills in Sq Hill
• Mar 17: 8mi conv - we ran 8.8 miles through Pittsburgh! We stopped at about the 5mi mark to say hello to friends, who lived on the course and were having dinner. But otherwise we ran the whole thing, including the last 1mi uphill. A great way to keep my mind off of MATCH the following day!
• Mar 20: 40min moderate - fast-paced 4.2mi run in my family's neighborhood.
  
• Mar 21: 45min easy - same as 3/20, taken much slower.

Weeks 1 & 2

So I'm using a "beginner" training program. It calls for one moderate-pace run (I try to make these more challenging by doing lots of hills), one easy-pace run, and one long conversational run per week. The other days are cross-train days, and one rest day per week. Hence the "moderate", "easy", and "conversational" interspersed below.

Week 1 (March 1-7): It was still snowing, with those 5-foot brown ice piles everywhere, and black ice on the sidewalks. Running outside was not an option.

• Mar 2: 35min moderate - ~3.5mi on hill mode on the treadmill, max incline 5.0 and max speed 6.5. Also walked 2.5 miles to the hospital in the morning
• Mar 3: 25min elliptical, arms #1, stretch
• Mar 4: 40min easy - 3.7 at 1.0 incline on treadmill
• Mar 6: Bob (~25min) + 25min Pilates

Week 2 (March 8-14): The sun came out and the snow started to melt! It was my first time running outside in 2010 and it was glor-i-us.

• Mar 8: 6mi conversational - ~60min from Squirrel Hill to Oakland, back through Shadyside. Was incredibly proud of myself for not stopping at all, including on the big hill during the last mile.
  
• Mar 9: 40min moderate - 4.2mi hilly run through Squirrel Hill
• Mar 10: 20min Pilates + Jillian level 2
• Mar 11: 40min easy - 3.9mi run through Squirrel Hill (hillier and therefore not as "easy" as I had planned for)
• Mar 12: 30min Bob
• Mar 13: In Philly - walked a TON + danced the night away :)
• Mar 14: In Philly - 7mi conversational - ~110min up to the museum, back through Penn
  

The run in Philly was fantastic! Scenic, flat, well-paced (with a good amount of walking and a detour through the Penn Bookstore)... Running in a pack definitely makes it seem faster and funner!

I've definitely been hungrier since my weekly mileage has shot up from maybe 4mi per week to over 15. I've been trying to eat healthy at home, but going out with friends over the weekend (not to mention a food-fest in Philly) definitely negates all this hard work.

Meh. Food is good. Life is good.

Another Blog!

Welcome! And I'm asking myself the same thing: am I crazy? I started another blog? As if I keep up with the other one(s)!

But I wanted a place to keep track of my training runs without boring the crap out of the readers of my "personal" blog... although posts about running are probably more interesting than anything else I write there. Har. In any case, this is where I'll be keeping track of my training runs and mileage in my quest to complete the Pittsburgh Half Marathon on May 2, 2010.

Maybe I'll inspire one of y'all (yinz) to start training, too! If I can do it, trust me, so can you.