Trail Running Blog

Half Marathon Training: In the Final Stretch

It’s been a while since I wrote a post about my half marathon training, the good thing is that I have still been running and training (for the most part). It’s not necessarily due to laziness, but I just had to attend to other very important things that were going on in my life, outside of running. It is fairly safe to say that I will be able to focus on running again (maybe even more than before) very soon, if not in the near future.

There are some cool stats in DailyMile: TVs Powered, Gas Saved and best of all, Donuts Burned!

So back to running, my first half marathon is in less than one week away! I am going into week 10, I suppose my taper week, of my half marathon training for the Silver Strand Half Marathon & 5K. I know I’ve said this before, but it’s pretty scary to spend 10 weeks training for one moment, one race. It’s a whole lot of pressure. Stepping up to that starting line and running a disappointing race is something that I fear most (from a running perspective). But on the flip side, because this is my first half, I want it to be fun too so that I will continue to want to run and train for these races. It’s going to be a big race and I just need to step back and enjoy the whole race atmosphere and see how cool everything really is.

I have about three week’s worth of runs that I need to catch up on, but that would make this post way too long. I won’t do that but just note some of the more important runs. It’s sort of business as usual for some days, but others have been very productive. For example, I’ve been continuing to tear up the track in my speed workouts, ran some very fast but comfortable times in my tempo runs and even ran the most miles ever as a runner (14 miles). I think one of the most notable runs that I had was being able to successfully run that long run because that just proved that I will be able to complete my upcoming marathon. It was a nice follow up to the 12 mile run that I did a couple of weeks before where I was able to run at a pretty decent pace, which also showed that I should be able to run this marathon pretty fast.

This final week will consist of some quick and short workouts, which concludes with an off day Saturday and then the half marathon. I ran in the morning at the end of last week and because of day light savings, it was actually light out which was a nice change. I’ll probably do the rest of the runs this week in the morning to help get used to running in the mornings since the race will be in the morning as well. I probably won’t post again until after my race, which I’m hoping will be a positive race report 🙂

10.13 – Long Intervals: 2 miles, 2×1 mi, 2x800m
2 miles: 12:44 (6:13, 6:31); miles: 5:53, 5:56; 800m: 2:55, 2:35

10.17 – Long Run (6 Miles Easy, 5 Race Pace + 20/30 sec)
5 miles: 34:58

10.20 – Hardest Intervals to Date: 5x1200m @ 6:40 pace
Splits: 4:31, 4:24, 4:23, 4:25, 4:20

10.25 – Longest Run Ever: 14 miles, ready for my half marathon
14 miles: 1:47

10.27 – 5x1000m Intervals @ 6:30
Splits: 3:40, 3:33, 3:34, 3:44, 3:27

10.30 – Tempo Run, 5 miles: 31:43
Splits: 6:36, 6:26, 6:19, 6:17, 6:03

11.1 – Long Run on the Trail
9 miles, 6:19 last mile

11.3 – Intervals, 5×800 @ 6:30 pace
Splits: 2:50 + 2:39 (5:29 mile), 2:44 + 2:36 (5:20), 2:40

11.6 – Last Tempo Run of my Half Training, 6 mi: 38:55
Splits: 6:31, 6:44, 6:38, 6:26, 6:28, 6:05

11.8 – Last Long Run
10 miles, 8:41 pace