Training for Half Craziness #1

 
I decided with the new year, I would run another half marathon... Crazy?  I like to think I am only half crazy, lol!  Last year, I finished my first half marathon (13.1 miles), in the Delaware Marathon Running Festival, with a time of 2:42:31 (really 13.46 GPS miles).  This year, I set a goal to try the same race again, and improve my time.  I am using the Runners World Smart Coach app, by Runners World Magazine.  You can set your desired training time frame, distance goal, race time/distance, current weekly distance, and how aggressive you want to train.  I love this app it's great even if you want to maintain or improve your current running ability, and not train for an actual race.

Ok, on to my training.... I have completed the first 4 weeks of a 16 week long training program.  This Training Thursday, I'm going to recap my last 4 weeks of running.  I will recap every 4 weeks or so, until the big race day.
This month was quite interesting as far as my training went.  The auto show season kicked into full gear, as did my training.  All of my training was done in hotel gyms, and on treadmills... for two main reasons, 1: I consider myself a fair weather runner (I hate running in the super cold) 2: I have been traveling to cold, snowy cities... enough said!  The first week's goal was 6 miles total, I actually finished the week with 7.5 mi.  I ran good easy runs on my run days, and did cross-training or yoga on my non-run days.  It was an easy first week.

Week 2 was just as easy, mileage goal of 7 mi, I finished with 8.3 miles.  We had some abnormally warm weather on east coast, so I ran outside at Glasgow park for my first run, then the rest of the runs were in a DC hotel gym.  I implemented a new cross-training routine, I found on Pinterest... 5-4-3-2-1.  It seemed easy and fast, boy was I wrong!  However, with yoga I really felt stronger heading into week 3.

Stronger... Yes... Crazy... Yes!  This week's (3) mileage goal was 9 miles... I finished the week with 12.5 miles. I increased my mileage too much too fast.  I have to learn to stick with the training program, because nothing good comes from increasing your miles too much too soon.  I continued including 5-4-3-2-1 and yoga as my cross-trainers.  In DC, I also walked a 5 mile sight-seeing tour of some of the monuments.  Which was awesome, until I went for my run the next day. All of the miles caught up with me, and my body hurt, especially my shins!

After such a tough week 3, I decided to treat myself to a new pair of running sneakers, as I do every year! Another treat was a much needed rest day.  I picked up my training after I flew to Syracuse, and finished the week with another 7 miles, even though my weekly goal was 10.  I was not feeling stronger... I was feeling sore (still) in my right shin and my right foot.... Great!  I kept my runs slow and easy, and continued to cross-train with 5-4-3-2-1.

Now, here's the thing, I've got 2 choices heading into week 5... Rest my leg/foot or forge through and bang out the weekly goal of 13 miles... What do you think?