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13 Weeks to 13 Miles! OUC Orlando Half Marathon Training: Week 7

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. It was so very hot though. Not only that, it was 99% humidity. The fog was so thick that I couldn't see three houses ahead of me. I had to be extremely careful with the fog and potential cars. One good thing about running as early as I do, is that there are very few people out and moving around so I usually see 2-3 cars total. I also tend to stay on a roundabout route on the road behind our house. It is a 3 mile loop so I just repeat it as needed to get more mileage. It does get boring, but I like staying off the main road. Also, it tends to the part of the neighborhood that the bear doesn't visit quite as often. I so want to see him... but maybe not while running early in the morning in the dark. Anyway, I completed this run but I didn't even want to talk about it. It was so uncomfortable. Steven even said when he went outside to go to work it was miserable. That's how bad it was.

Thursday
Plan: 4 Miles, Actual: 4 Miles
Unlike the last run, this one was great! It was much cooler at 66 degrees and the humidity was significantly lower. My overall pace was 12:54 even keeping 1:1 intervals. I can book it during those intervals when I need to. My fastest mile was actually 12:43 and of the four miles, only one was over a 13 minute mile. I did my normal route and felt really good upon finishing.

Sunday
Plan: 7 Miles, Actual: 2.06 Miles & 5.07 Miles
So this was a strange day but we made it work and got awesome medals in the process. We realized a while back that this long run was the same day as the U Can Finish race. The UCF race has two races you can choose from... or you can run both in what they refer to as the "Distance Dare." Lo and behold... both races together equal? Yep, 7 miles. Those sneaky people at Track Shack. While we are Fanatics and have already paid for admittance into every Fanatics Series race, running Distance Dares are extra and we didn't pay for that before. We decided a couple weeks ago though to go ahead and add the 2 mile race to our already paid for 5 mile race since we needed all 7 miles anyway. Plus, when you run both you get a small 2 Mile medal, the large 5 Mile shield medal, AND a really cool sword that sticks to the 5 Mile medal since you ran the Distance Dare. Sold! We made it out to UCF around 6:30 am and made our way over to the starting line. The 2 mile runs first. It wasn't long before we started the 2 mile route. 2 miles wasn't bad at all; however, it was already 7:30 when it started and crazy humid. Plus, our short-lived fall season was long gone so it was hot. I finished the 2 miles in just under 26 minutes. I forgot to stop my watch though so my pace is totally wrong on my watch. I think based on the chip timing I paced around 12:50 or so. That was mostly keeping my 1:1 intervals but those are harder in race format because you are sometimes at the mercy of the speed of those around you since you can't always get around them. I was feeling pretty good when I finished 2 miles and had about 4 minutes to wait before starting the 5 mile. It wasn't so long that my legs started to cramp or anything and it wasn't so short that I couldn't get water and take a quick breather. The 5 mile definitely started quickly though. I kept my 1:1 intervals through most of the first 2 miles but then I started to hit a wall. The weather was just not good at all for running and it was so sunny. It wasn't comfortable at all. There were also only 2 water stops. Not enough in my opinion when the heat is going to be so bad but that's how the course was set up. We have done this race in long sleeves before so you never know what you may get with this particular race in Central Florida in October. By the time I finished 4 miles and was starting to work my way towards the baseball and football stadiums, I was not feeling good at all. I knew I was getting majorly overheated. I was starting to feel nauseous. I was walking a lot at that point and knew that I could walk the rest and keep my pace under a 14 minute mile. I actually texted Steven while I was in the baseball stadium (you run the warning track all the way around the field) and told him I was overheated and planned to walk most of the rest of it. He had actually just finished and was feeling pretty gross himself. He caught me as I exited the stadium and I told him I would be walking most of the remaining distance. He knew how he felt so he told me to be careful and off I went. At this point I just had to circle the outside of the football stadium and I would be done. This is the end of the 2 mile route too so I sort of knew when I would be finishing (my watch was off by about .1 mile which is normal in races for me so I had to guesstimate on distance). I ran a couple times for very short time spans (maybe 20-30 seconds at a time) when I was in the shade. Otherwise, I walked. I walk very quickly... but I walked. Once I saw the finish line and was fairly close, I finished the race in a run. Really, I just wanted to get it done. Haha! I crossed the finish line and picked up all my medals before downing 3 cups of water and thankfully not throwing up all over the place. Though it was in consideration for a bit. I think doing 7 miles isn't necessarily an issue... doing it in that weather is the problem. My overall pace was 13:50 so I did end up keeping under a 14 minute mile. My first three miles were 12:55, 13:19, and 13:45 respectively. It all broke down after that though. 4 and 5 were 14:08 and 15:05. Let's hope Central Florida finds fall before the half marathon though because doing 13.1 miles in that would be brutal.

Total Weekly Miles: 15.13
Total Training Miles: 74.77

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