The Half Marathon

Some of you know about the saga of my back and my frustration with having to give up running. A half marathon was something I had always wanted to do, and despite the fact that for a long time I was the only person who believed I could, I decided to go ahead and register. I made my own training plan since I only had 6 weeks to train (pre-made plans have 12 weeks) and worked with a PT/Pilates studio in Westlake to make sure my body was mobile enough. My mini training plan, starting from knowing I could walk 3miles at a 15min pace, was:

Week : Mon - Tue - Wed - Thu - Fri - Sat - Sun
Week 1: 3mi - rest - 4mi - Pilates - rest - 5mi - rest
Week 2: 3.5mi - rest - 3.5mi - Pilates - 1 hr stroll - rest - 7mi
Week 3: rest - 3.5 - Pilates - 3.5 - rest - 9mi
Week 4: 3.5mi - Pilates - 3.5mi - rest - Dental Surgery - rest - 11mi
Week 5: rest - Pilates - 3.5mi - rest - 9mi - rest - Ski
Week 6: Ski - Ski - Snowshoe - Ski - Ski - rest - 13.1!

The ski trip was a coincidence, but I decided to count it as high-altitude cross training just so I could justify it :)

On race day, my friend & I walked the half in a record time (for me) of 3:07! The slowest I allowed myself mentally was 3:30 and my training plan was trending a couple of minutes faster than that, but with the aid of my Energizer Bunny friend, we managed to haul my butt way quicker! Our overall pace per chip time was 14:14min/mile!

Here are screen shots of snowshoe "training walk", covering an elevation gain of 1150ft in the first lap! The pace info is pretty embarrassing, but hey, I'm not trying to impress anybody with my snowshoeing.

Downhill was a piece of cake - I just walked down a long blue run.

So now that the half is over, I find myself making plans for what I'll do next. Stay tuned for further adventures. I might no longer be a girl on wheels, but I still have feet :)