Half Marathon in Two Weeks

My race is coming up so quickly! Today we ran our longest run before the half-marathon (11.2 miles) and starting next week we'll be tapering a bit so our poor legs have some time to recover. While we were running today, I was talking to my training buddies (Brittney and Nicole) and we were all talking about how none of us ever would have thought ourselves capable of running such long distances. We were running for 2 hrs 18 minutes today (no stopping and no walking!! Well, there were a few stoplights but I jog in place at them so I don't creak when I start back up again...). That's a LONG time to be running (or, jogging--you can do the math if you like--we're not doing this for time)! And honestly, parts of my legs and feet hurt SO BADLY after about 5 miles, but it's really helpful to have a goal and a training schedule to keep me on track. My only goal is to finish the race without walking, so that's my goal for each training run, too.

On our shorter runs (5 miles), we've been focusing on running a bit faster, so our pace is about 30-45 seconds faster per mile on those days than it is for our long runs. Now, after our "halfie", we'll be focusing on speed and hills more, rather than distance, but our base distance will still be 5 miles. AND we'll probably be doing a sprint triathlon in August. Woohoo!

Hooray for getting fit!