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...

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...

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 ...

It's been a while since I have done a "series" type post(s). When I first started running, I documented my progress via this blog using the C25K method. Well, after running for four or so years, I have finally worked up the courage to give a half marathon a go. A freaking half marathon. That's 13.1 miles. Steven and I officially registered for the OUC Orlando Half Marathon about a month ago after talking about how this was a goal both of us had. At this point, my main goal? Finish. Finish and be able to say I completed a half marathon. Bonus if I finish in under 3 hours. That seems like a ridiculous amount of time to run... and it probably is. I'm going into this though with minimal time consideration other than less than 15 minutes per mile (which is the recommended slowest pace on the half course so they can reopen roads). A 15 minute mile would let me finish a half in 3 hours, 16 minutes. And hey... if it takes me that long? So be it. But I plan to be done. I w...

It's the moment we have anxiously waited for since we found out Will was going to join our family. A kiddo that may want to play baseball. Now, there is no saying that Kenzie couldn't, of course... but she has always been more into things like dance and the like so although she has talked about playing softball since Will started t-ball, we know she would rather dance and do Girl Scouts. Also, our rule at this point is two activities that take up time after school for right now. We have to learn how to say no sometimes. All that being said, we finally got to the baseball point in our lives. In Apopka, baseball is sort of king. The team sports Apopka offers are great. We know plenty of people that play a lot of them but there is something about baseball in this area. The Apopka Little League is well known enough that Steven had someone at work mention it when he said something about Will playing t-ball this season. So, that's what we were walking into. Will officially...

I'm finally getting around to writing up and posting a race recap for our most recent race. It wasn't that long ago but I find that if I wait a few days or more, I have a harder time remembering everything I wanted to say. So, let see if I can remember... This race was made for us... We even made one of the promo pics this year. Haha!!! Last Saturday we ran the Celebration of Running 5k for the second year in a row. This is the first race in the Track Shack Running Series. We didn't register for the series again this year as we are unsure if we can do one specific race later in the season so it wasn't worth it for us. One year we are going to though. I want that extra medal and Raw Threads shirt. The day before the race my knee started acting up again randomly. I wasn't really happy about that. It was bad enough that Steven encouraged me to walk the entire thing. I asked my mom to bring one of her knee braces for me to borrow hoping that would help. We decide...