May 1, 2011

1 down!

Today wrapped up 1 week of half-marathon training!  My calves are continuing to be annoyingly tight no matter how much stretching and foam rolling I do, and my IT band is definitely not 100%, but all in all I was able to get in my 3 scheduled runs this week without any real problems.  I'm just happy I am running again!!! Plus the weather was absolutely gorgeous this morning.  Could spring FINALLY be here to stay?!?  Gosh I hope so!

This week was an easy start: two 3 mile runs during the week and a 4 mile long run this morning (+ cross training).  Pretty simple, but after my spotty past few months of running, an easy start is exactly what I need!  When I trained for the first half-marathon, I used Hal Higdon's Novice half-marathon training plan.  I liked a lot of things about it, but I decided I wanted to tweak some things for this training cycle...First, I wanted to add in some recovery weeks between the long runs as the mileage builds up.  Also, I wanted to add a little more of a taper.  I altered these two things, plus a 12 mile long run like I did for the last half-marathon (Hal's plan only gets you up to 10 miles).  
This week I remembered that I actually really dislike the taste of energy gel...yuck.  Oh well, it does the job, and at least I didn't get it all over my computer or cut my mouth open today!  Note to self: experiment with some other flavors and brands of gels this summer...

Hope you had a wonderful weekend and got to spend some time outside!!

4 comments:

  1. Congrats on finishing week one! I'm planning to start training for my first half after I finish the Couch to 10k program. I want to use Hal's training plan as well. I'm going to take your advice! Good luck!

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  2. yay!! good job on your training this week. have you tried the power bar brand gels? I think they are pretty good actually...I like strawberry banana and the vanilla one!

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  3. Sticking with a plan is a great way to do it! Wishing you the best as you follow Hal :) Hope those calves loosen up for you.

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  4. Hooray! The first step is the biggest step!

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