11.17.14
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All 2014 Goals Completed!

At the beginning of the year, I laid out four goals I wanted to accomplish:

Finish two half marathons.
This was completed with the Walt Disney World Half Marathon and the Country Music Half Marathon.

Run a sub-30 minute 5k.
This was completed at the Smyrna Parks 5k in August.

Volunteer!
I volunteered at the Purity Dairy Dash back in April and will be doling out race packets at the Flying Monkey Marathon next weekend.

Participate in a running streak for a month.
Thirty-three days of running in a row DONE! Not a calendar month, but Merriam-Webster says it counts. I ran a total of 103 miles!

The thing I’m most excited about now that my running streak is over? I don’t have to document every single run on Instagram anymore! I honestly didn’t intend to take a picture every day of my streak. I just started and then I felt weird stopping (like someone would think that I had missed a day or something, I don’t know). But I was running out of creative ideas for photos every day (and sometimes the landscape just wasn’t very inspiring…or too dark to see anything). Here are some of my favorites!

http://instagram.com/p/uOrp_rElOr/?modal=true
http://instagram.com/p/unu3gtElGM/?modal=true
http://instagram.com/p/uwOEdGElG0/?modal=true
http://instagram.com/p/vMQh5lklOP/?modal=true

Now, back to my normal, cat-heavy Instagram feed.

11.13.14
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It begins again…

With my birthday running steak coming to a close, it means, yes, it’s half marathon training time again!

I’ve created the following training plan based mostly on Runkeeper’s sub-2:15 plan. However, I thought the long runs ramped up rather quickly (double digits on week 3 and 12 miles by week 6), so I stretched those out just a little bit. I also made the cutback weeks a little more cutback. Then I just kind of rearranged some stuff to make more sense for me. For example, I’m running a 5k race in week 3 and a 15k race in week 13.

My goal race is the Tom King Classic on March 7th. I’m also running the Cedars Frostbite a month before as a supported long training run (aka, I don’t plan on even attempting to PR, so who wants to run with me?).

half marathon training plan

Any run without a pace designation should be ran easy. This includes long runs. All other runs should include an easy-paced warm up and cool down of a mile or so each. All speed and tempo runs will have 2 minutes walking or jogging recovery between intervals. I will probably include strides at the end of a lot of the easy run as it gets closer to the date of the half.

Here are my pace times to aim for 2:15! (No pressure!)
Intervals: 9:30-9:45 min/mi
Tempo: 9:45-10:00 min/mi
Goal pace: 10:00-10:20 min/mi
Steady: 10:45-11:15 min/mi
Easy: 12:00-13:00 min/mi

I plan to do strength training on non-running days. Yoga will follow the long run.

I also have a fall-back training plan I can switch to if this one proves too much for me. It involves running every other day (3-4 times per week) instead of 4-5 times per week, and includes a cutback week every other week, so the overall mileage over the course of the plan is about 80 miles less.

I’m most dreading the mid-week 7-9 mile runs I’m going to have to do on the treadmill because it will still be too dark outside to run after work. Luckily, it looks like there will be Preds games on most of those nights, so I will have something to watch.

After this plan ends, another immediately begins. I haven’t fully worked out the details yet (I want to see how this training goes), but it will include another training race (Oak Barrel Half) and then a goal half at the end of April (Kentucky Derby miniMarathon). Yes, that’s four half marathons (plus a 15k!) in three months! After that, I plan on taking a long distance break and enjoying my summer before maybe attempting another in the fall. 2015 will be the year of the half!

11.10.14
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Week of 11/3/14 – 11/9/14: #streakfor33, days 20-26

week of 11/3/14 to 11/9/14

Monday – 3.3 miles on the treadmill (10:30 avg pace)
Tuesday – 3.68 miles (11:43 avg pace)
Wednesday – 3.3 miles on the treadmill (11:17 avg pace)
Thursday – 3.0 miles (9:42 avg pace)
Friday – 1.04 mile (10:37 avg pace)
Saturday – 3.6 miles (11:04 avg pace)
Sunday – 3.8 miles (11:30 avg pace…approximately…all four of my apps gave me a different pace average because I kept stopping for photos, so take your pick between 10:31, 11:30, 11:39, and 12:39)

Kind of a speedy week! My run on Thursday was the fastest 3 miles I’ve ever run in training (my third fastest if you include races). I went out with the group, and it was cold and not a lot of people showed up. Not wanting to run alone in the dark, I stuck with some ladies who regularly run a little faster than I do. But I was able to keep up, even if my quads could really feel it the next day! Pretty good for having some 17-20 mph winds blowing at us!

I found a new place to run on Sunday: Bells Bend Park. It consists of mostly grassy and some gravel trails through the country in one of the bends of the Cumberland. Hardly anyone else was out there, so it was pretty peaceful! Well, it would have been if my Garmin hadn’t started beeping about a low battery almost as soon as I got on the trail. It kept saying the battery was dead, then restarting itself, resulting in four ear-piercing beeps about every three seconds. I was very close to throwing it into the surrounding fields. It continued to beep the entire ride home. I don’t understand how it had the power to keep restarting itself and beeping so much if the battery was as low as it claimed.

pheebs-fire-alarm-o

So I probably would have done more mileage on Sunday, but I was about to go insane because of the watch after 3.8.

11.07.14
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For those who get bored easily on the treadmill…

treadmill

Since it gets dark before I get off work now (and I’m terrible about getting up to run in the mornings), I found myself on the treadmill twice this week. I am mentally incapable of running at one pace on the treadmill, even if I have music or TV to distract me, so I tend to play around with the speed a lot. Here’s the workouts I did this week:

Workout #1: Treadmill Progression Run
Start at an easy pace for you. For me, this was 5.0 (12:00 min/mi). At a predetermined time or distance, increase the speed by 0.1. I increased by 0.1 every 0.2 miles for the first mile, and every 0.25 for the next two miles. I planned to do 3.3 miles total, so for the final 0.3 miles, I increased the speed every 0.1 miles. This gave me a final speed of 6.8 (8:49 min/mi) and an overall average pace of about 10:30.

Workout #2: Easy Speed Work
For the second treadmill day, I wanted to do some speed work, but didn’t want to completely exhaust my legs since I’m still streaking. I got the idea to use my Couch to 10k app to time intervals, but, instead of jogging, I ran fast. I combined the first two weeks’ intervals to come up with this plan:
Warm up at an easy pace for 3-5 minutes, then alternate sprinting (I used speeds between 7.0 and 8.0, starting slower and increasing speed as the intervals went on and my legs warmed up) for one minute with walking (I walked at 3.5) for 1.5 minutes. Repeat six times. Then alternate sprinting for 1.5 minutes with walking for 2 minutes. Repeat six times. Cool down.

Other treadmill workouts I’ve posted:
Ways to Beat the Treadmill Blahs
5/6/7/5 Workout

11.03.14
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Week of 10/27/14 – 11/2/14: #streakfor33, days 13-19

The streak continues…

week of 10/27/14 to 11/2/14

Monday: 3.3 miles (13:22 avg pace)
Tuesday: 4 miles (12:42 avg pace)
Wednesday: 3.3 miles (11:26 avg pace)
Thursday: 3.3 miles (11:38 avg pace)
Friday: 1 mile (10:19 avg pace)
Saturday: 3.3 miles (11:14 avg pace)
Sunday: 5.25 miles (11:24 avg pace)

I did good keeping it easy-paced at the beginning of the week! I did intervals (mostly 3:1, but I did 1.5:1 on Monday) on all my runs this week, except for the one mile on Friday that I ran straight through. I think this has helped keep the runs easier, although my legs still feel pretty tired and heavy.

Sorry it’s been kind of quiet around here. I’m not doing any super interesting runs right now. Only two more weeks of streaking left!