The whining will stop now :)

And now I'm over my little pity party - just ignore the crazy lady behind the blog :)

It rained all day yesterday and was foggy and super humid after work with a bit of drizzling but I went jogging anyway while hubby walked the dog. (Yes - I do have to give details about the weather because it makes me feel even better about myself for going! lol)

2 miles
Mile 1: 9:22
Mile 2: 10:00
(mile 2 included walking for 1:30 too)

Feeling = AWESOME :)

Nothing hurt thanks to my 2 days off of running and tons of stretching. It was hard but amazing and I'm looking forward to doing it again.

A few things I want to work into training for our next half marathon:

1. Speed work - we are planning on running 4x's a week with a long run on Saturdays so my hope is to get my 2 x 3 mile and 2 x 5 mile runs during the week down to a 11 min/mile average or under.
The 2 x 3 mile runs will probably be speed work of some sort to get down around 10 or under like yesterday. I think by focusing on speed during the shorter runs it will help me not be so stressed about it on the long runs and will ultimately help my long runs be stronger and faster in the end.

2. Interval change - I am really sick of 10:1 - watching the clock that much drives me nuts and I just enjoy running and want to keep going. I am not ready to just run the whole thing and I don't want that to be my focus since I only have 9 weeks of training ahead of me. I think this round I want to try 15:1 and see how that works on my long runs. I know I can do it on my short runs and if I stick to it even when doing speed work, I think it will be really beneficial for me when Im running longer and slower on Saturdays.
It will be hard at first, but hopefully I'll be able to build up to it and stick to it even around miles 7-11 which will prepare me better for our next race.

3. Hill work - we worked this into the second half of our training plan last time and I am soooooooo glad we did or else I would have had to walk even more at the last half marathon. I am proud of myself for doing so well (finally! lol) but I want to continue the trend and work in more inclines and hills since most races around us are in PA and I don't want to be scared of hills. Beat the hill - love the hill ;-)

4. Strength training - yesterday I did a few lunges, donkey kicks, leg lifts and a little bit of arm work. I am trying to take it super easy since 5 lunges on each leg last week made me sore for days haha. I don't want strength training to mess with my running plans, but I also know I need it to be a stronger and healthier runner with less injuries so I am making it a priority from the start and building up little by little.

5. Cross training - This will be harder now that we are in a new building for work that doesn't have a gym. We do have a bike and elliptical at our apartment gym so maybe I'll have to force myself to do that on rest days (other than Sunday). Also just making a conscious effort to go out and walk on my lunch break when it is nice and go for walks with the dog in the morning and evening with Lukas will help - I need to increase my "active time"  to be a happier, healthier person, without increasing my running time too much and causing more injuries.

I'm done obsessing about our last race, happy with the training we did and the effort we made, and looking forward to this next round of training to be faster, stronger, and better prepared for the next race with hopefully no injuries!

... I also need to start using my vibrams again slowly, I miss them! I was having some calf issues so I stopped using them over a month before the race and now I need to start back over from ground zero and just walk in them. That will help with #5 above tho because walking is a great way to get used to them again. I'm going to take it slow and continue to focus on strengthening my calf muscles so that I don't have issues with them this time - nothing major last time, they just made my right calf too tight which was an issue for training so I want to avoid that as much as possible.

Running keeps me sane - so glad I was able to get out there last night and just get out of my head, stop obsessing, and get back to reality :) Hopefully the weather will clear up so I can go again this week and Saturday we are hitting the trails which is going to be AWESOME because we haven't been able to do that in a while either.