Young Party of Four

It's official! We both get to say that we are half-marathoners. 13.1 miles is no joke. There have been a few times that we have walked that equivalent throughout a day (though it is rare because that is a LOT of walking and you are hard pressed to randomly walk that amount in a day even if you are on a mission), but to purposely try to complete it in a set amount of time all at once... that is some serious stuff. The week leading up to the race was nerve racking for me. I ended up having what I think was my plantar fascitis flare up the Sunday before the race after our last 6 mile training run. It was bad. I developed it a few years back when we lived in a house with almost all tile and it comes and goes randomly depending on activities I have done or shoes I have worn. It hasn't bothered me at all though during training until a week ago. Because of course it would show up a week out from race day. Why the heck not? Let's liven up the mood a little. Freaking heel. As a

It's official! The homestretch. Race day in upon us. Wednesday Plan: 3 Miles, Actual: 3 Miles This was a nice, easy run. I used to not want to do 3 miles as a normal, everyday style run. But here we are! I can do this in my sleep. It was nice weather and super easy. One thing I did notice though... some minor heel pain after my run. Hmmm...  Friday Plan: 3 Miles, Actual: 3 Miles Another easy run. Again, some minor heel pain. I was wondering if it was mostly because I wasn't taping my foot figuring that since I was only going 3 miles, it wouldn't be needed. Looking back, I think I should have taped. The weather was nice this day and I got it done just before the sun came up. I kept my typical pace. It's definitely my happy pace and I'm still feeling good about that overall. I reading in the OUC participant guide that you just have to keep an overall 15 minutes or less pace in order to get your time. They said they could start removing the timing strip

It's the biggest week of the training plan!! Here. We. Go! Tuesday Plan: 5 Miles, Actual: 5 Miles We have officially hit the point that 5 miles doesn't seem like much anymore. It's just 5 miles. The only downfall with this run was that it was about 5 degrees cooler than I would have liked. Oh well. Beggars can't be choosers so I'm letting that go. It wasn't as cold as I was on Sunday morning so I will take that as a win. I did my normal route and didn't see the bear. Again. So that's about all I felt with this run. I was having a bit of pain on the side of my calf like I have before but it went away after about a mile. My pace was about average for me at around 13:30 or so. The run felt good though. That's about it. It's becoming so routine at this point that I don't have a lot to say about most of these shorter runs. They are standard, I guess. And I guess that is good. Thursday Plan: 5 Miles, Actual: 5 Miles All in all, not a bad ru

Double digit week is upon us!!! Not only is it Week 10 of the training plan, but it is also the week that we run double digits for the first time as part of training. Okay, as part of life. I've never run double digits before this week. Tuesday Plan: 4.5 Miles, Actual: 4.5 Miles Our last week with 4.5 mile short runs. Next week it goes up to 5 and then drops to 3 for the weeks before the actual race. This was another one of those crazy humid mornings. I screenshot the weather before I left when it said 100% humidity and it was so bad. I couldn't see but maybe a house ahead of me for a while during the run. It did start to burn off just a bit as I was heading home in the final .5 mile stretch. Or maybe I was just accustomed to it by then. Either way, it was rough. It was cool though so I'm calling that a major win because I don't want to another 100% humidity day along with heat. Though it could happen. This is Central Florida after all. This run felt easy. It was de

Bring on the 18 mile week!!! This is going to be an interesting one since one run I'm doing outside my normal neighborhood (more on that on day 2 of this week's plan). Full disclosure to myself when I read this back one day... I'm writing this a full week removed from the first run of this week so I have no idea what was going on most of the time when I was running a week before. =( Tuesday Plan: 4.5 Miles, Actual: 4.5 Miles This is the first week of short runs being 4.5 miles and I was ready for it. I ran these at about my normal pace averaging 13:49 pace. Overall I was slightly slower, but it was fairly warm this morning and I wasn't feeling it. I think this was a run that I woke up not in the mood to do anything but I did it anyway so I could keep on schedule. Also, I knew that with this week, we were officially just over a month away from race day so I was excited and feeling sort of ready to get the show on the road and finish. Other than the heat, I remember

It's happened! We have officially made it more than halfway through the training plan and that means the OUC Half Marathon is now closer than ever. Obviously. That's how time works. Anyway, this is a week that requires 16 total miles and a whole lot of my time... but here we go! Wednesday Plan: 4 Miles, Actual: 4.11 Miles So, to start... the weather still stinks. Seriously stinks for fall. So much humidity. It doesn't even seem to matter what the temperature is because the humidity makes every run so much harder than it needs to be. It takes your breath away. Today was slightly cooler than last week's runs and I could feel that in the air... but the humidity stole away any added reprieve from the lower temp. Also, when I say "lower", I mean not 80 degrees at 5 am. Nope. It was 77 degrees. Still ridiculous. We are supposed to be seeing some cooler weather (60 degree morning temps) this weekend so I'm holding out hope for that. But not much hope. This ru

This is it. This is officially the middle week of the 13 weeks to 13 miles training plan. It's the odd man out week. It is also the week after our rest week and the week that things really start to pick up speed. We have mostly done overall low mileage weeks up until this point topping out at 13 miles which is overall less than the half marathon... by a measly .1 mile but that mileage was all divvied up over 3 runs so it's definitely not the same. Now we start ramping up and we don't slow down until the week before the race when we essentially taper. This week is an overall 15 miles and by the end, we will top out at 22 weekly miles. Eek. We can do it! I know we can. I hope. Haha! Tuesday Plan: 4 Miles, Actual: 4 Miles Whew! Another run in the books. This one was probably one of the worst ones so far. Not because I didn't run okay. I was actually fine for most of the run. I kept my 1:1 intervals and paced about 13:30 without too many outliers as far as timing goes.

New decision made. I'm only blogging actual run days from here on out. Those added days are just taking up my time and since this is mostly to look back at myself and see how I did (and no one else is likely to ever read them), I'm not writing about those anymore. This is officially our "off week." We literally have two 3 mile runs... and that is it. Not complaining. I need an off week. I'm glad that Track Shack threw this one in there. Tuesday Plan: 3 Miles, Actual: 3.12 Miles Technically, I probably should have run 3.4 miles in order to make up for the .4 that I missed last week... but I didn't. So, that's that. It was actually a great run though. I ended up finishing with a 12:35 pace which ended up being my fastest pace using the 1:1 intervals so far. It just felt like a good run too. I find these shorter runs are definitely becoming easier. I would have liked a slightly cooler morning though. Fall can come at any time. I have taken to just doing a

Week 5! Can't believe it. After this week, we have a week "off" with no long run on the weekend so I am looking forward to that. Just because getting these runs in can sometimes be difficult. Next time we train for a half, we may want to consider training for two different ones so our training runs don't have to hit each other. Still not sure how we are going to handle the 10+ mile runs towards the end when we both have to get them done PLUS run a household with two young children. A lot of Netflix for them, maybe? Who knows. Anyway, this is not the official halfway point, but we are getting so close. And with this week's mileage, total mileage for training will officially top 50 miles. That is crazy to me. I have never run that many miles in such a short time. I'm a casual runner at best so this training has been a stretch for me. I'm mostly enjoying it though and I'm loving being able to say that I have accomplished this so far. Monday Plan: Cross

Today Will is officially five years old. A whole hand! He is our baby. He isn't supposed to grow up! I'm in denial. At the same time, I am so excited to watch him continue to grow and learn. At FIVE, Will... ... is ridiculously tall. Everyone keeps asking if he hit a growth spurt overnight. He might have. He ate a whole lot and slept 12+ hours a night for a week or two. After that was when everyone started asking if he grew overnight. So, maybe he did. I don't know. All I know is that all of his 5t pants were too short all of a sudden and his shorts had to be cycled through to make sure they still hit as close to his knees as possible. He also went to a size 12-13 shoe all of a sudden. He is around 45.75 inches tall (94th percentile). He also weighs around 40 pounds (44th percentile). Still very tall and thin. ... loves to eat but remains pretty picky. Honestly, he would graze all day if you let him. He gets it honest. That is how I like to eat. He is still pi

Week 4 is here!! After this week we are around 1/3 of the way through the training plan and less than 10 weeks out from race day. I'm getting more and more excited and yet more and more nervous all at the same time. I know I can finish 13.1 miles. I'm just worried about doing it in the time allotted. I should be fine though. I could mostly walk and run a couple minutes each mile while staying under the time allotted. But... on to week 4. Here we go! Monday Plan: Cross Train, Actual: Life Does that count? To just say that I did life that day? Probably not but I'm busy all the time so I'm counting it. Again, another day of 10,000 steps without training. And that even included not doing a ton during baseball practice AND going to worship rehearsal where I pretty much stood in one spot for more than an hour. Honestly, other than those two things and making sure Will stayed out of trouble, I can't even remember what I did that day. Tuesday Plan: 3.5 Miles, Actual:

Let's go! Week 3 is here. 3 mile runs are certainly getting easier each time I do them. We shall see what happens as we start adding more and more mileage as time goes on. This week remained fairly easy. Monday Plan: Cross Training, Actual: Rest I mentioned in my last day's recap that I was having weird pain around my c-section incision. Well, it was still sticking around on Monday so I didn't do anything extra. I hit my 10,000 step goal just doing my everyday normal thing so that was a bonus. I did walk around the cul-de-sac once just to get a few extra steps but I didn't rush and didn't track it or anything. Tuesday Plan: 3 Miles, Actual: 3 Miles Up and at em early again. This getting up at 5:30am thing is definitely getting a bit easier. I still find that I am awake about 20-30 minutes before I have to be with a bit of anxiety about getting up on time that makes it to where not only am I on time, but I'm early getting up because I can't sleep worr

It's week two of half marathon training! Yay! So far, the training plan has remained fairly easy. I know those long runs are coming and I'm not looking that forward to them. Though I'm not worried about it either. Here's how this week went... Monday Plan: Cross Training, Actual: 1.3 mile walk with Will (2.8mph) Today the plan called for cross training. I don't have a lot of extra time to do something significant but at least walking lets me get out, get moving and is easier on my body than running. So, I'm calling my walk today my cross training. I decided this morning that if I didn't do something, I was not going to get anywhere near my step goal. So, after running a few errands, Will and I decided to go for a short walk. I tried to convince him to sit in the stroller so I could go faster, but he really wanted to walk. So I told him that if he thought he could do it without complaining, he could walk. He did great! We didn't move nearly as fast as