Yesterday I ran my 10th half marathon! This was the 2014 Virtual Race for the Animals, put on by #vegrunchat. All proceeds are being donated to SASHA Farm– a farm animal sanctuary that offers a safe haven to animals in need of affection, social interaction, food, shelter, and lots of love! While I actually won my entry, I’ll still be making a donation to SASHA Farm :)
My friend Tammy also ran the half marathon and for the 3rd race in a row, she set a new PR! Go Tammy!!
I was about 5 minutes short of a PR, finishing at 2:12:02. I had a sub-30 5k and sub-60 10k, so I was hoping to finish at right around 2 hours. But at about 9 miles I started to struggle. My stomach started to cramp, and whenever I tried speeding up it got worse. I made it to almost 12 miles before I knew I was gonna have to use the bathroom in order to finish. So after, ahem… “taking care of business” I figured I’d breeze right through that last mile. Wrong. It was all I could do to get going again. I ended up doing 1:1 intervals that last mile and at that point I didn’t care how long it took – I would crawl to make it the full 13.1 miles! Overall though, I did pretty well, averaging a 10:05 mm.
So, what to do now? I have decided that I’m NOT ready for the full marathon yet. And honestly, I don’t know if I ever will be. That doesn’t mean that I’ll stop training/trying. I’m just being realistic with myself. Maybe if I had someone to physically run with. It’s great to have virtual running buddies, but I think I need the actual physical interaction to get me through double the distance. Does that make sense? Maybe it’s just my sore feet talking ;)
I think my next set of goals will remain focused on the half marathon. And so, in no particular order:
- Sub 2-hour finish. To work on this, I will be going back to the beginning with the Couch to 5k program, focusing on pace/speed.
- Become a Half Fanatic. The “easiest” way is to start with Neptune, which is completing 2 halfs in a 16-day time frame, or 3 halfs in 90 days.
- Run more races. Virtually or Physically, the best way to get myself motivated is by training for a race!
Have a great week :)
(m)EAT LESS, RUN MORE! 
Laura, first of all, your time is awesome! Someday I hope to be at the pace you run at! I’m so tired today; how are you feeling?
Anyway, you’ve had a lot of hurdles to overcome lately, so it’s no wonder that you’re not feeling up to a full marathon. Even though being virtual buddies isn’t the same, I hope that we can virtually train together next year!
This winter I really want to work on improving my speed, so if you have any tips, let me know!
I feel pretty good today. My feet are a little sore, but no blisters! Woohoo! We will ABSOLUTELY still train together! :) And for speed, I recommend redoing C25k and focus on doing the running portions at a higher speed. The first time I did it, I did all the running at 6mph. This time I’m gonna try doing 7mph. And I’m going to keep doing longer runs on Sundays so I don’t lose my endurance. I’ll probably start tomorrow if you wanna join me :)
I’m not sure if I’ll be able to start tomorrow; I’m thinking of giving myself at least a few days rest. I think that my body is trying to tell me that now that training is over, it wants a rest! LOL
I never thought about redoing the C25K, but that might not be a bad idea! And I was planning on doing 5-7 miles on Sundays during the winter, too. A friend of mine told me that she improved her speed by doing more strength training, so I want to focus on that as well!
We just need to plan a time to get together in the next year and run a race together – in person – forget the virtual stuff! :-D