Half-Marathon Training Week 6

Get ready, this is a long post with lots of pictures. This was the best week of training I’ve had so far. It was awesome!

Monday was 3 miles, and I did ok on time and everything. I wasn’t really focused, I was in the groove, until I came across this…

Yes, thats a snake. Its a harmless one, but none-the-less its a snake. A dead one at that. I’m weird when I run in a certain spot, the grass is way over grown and I always fear coming across a snake and this time I did. I sometimes think a stick is a snake, like thats how terrified I get. Its a little sad. Ok, maybe a lot sad. Anyway, it ended up being a great, sweaty run!

Wednesday was my first 4 miler on the training plan, and I was super excited. The last time I ran 4 miles was technically in December at the 10K, but I didn’t run 4 straight miles, I ran/walked. So the last real time was on my birthday when I ran 5 miles. But thats like 9 months ago! This was also a speedwork run, and I’ve never done those. I was nervous/excited. My goal was to finish feeling good, and I did! I had my Sweat Pink tank giving me pink power (since I am now an Ambassador! I’ll post that another day) and when I was done, I was a stinky-sweaty mess…but I loved it.

I’m not the fastest runner, but the plan was to go easy, and then speed it up to 90 seconds slower than ideal race pace, so I held on to that 10:25-10:33 mile pace for the last 3 miles! Wahoo! I know a lot of people are faster than me, and last year I was faster than this, but I wasn’t training this intense and being this tired. But I am so proud for doing it and maintaining it. I’m learning to run to where I feel comfortable, but still pushing it a little bit.

Today was the last run day (I was scheduled to run tomorrow morning, but I want to sleep in and I’m running Sunday) and it was again, 4 miles. This run was good, I still felt good…except the lead legs and feeling dead tired. I waited to run a little later because I was feeling a little iffy, stomach wasn’t happy. But I finished only 12 seconds slower than Wednesday’s run. Not bad in my mind! I was a mess, a sweaty-gross mess. Literally soaking in sweat.

I had a child ask me if he could go in the pool I just left from…HA! I about died, it was the cutest. As I was sitting here, I had a huge drop of my nasty sweat go in my mouth, holy gross-ness. There is nothing worse than that, but I will take that a sign of a fantastic run. It also looked like I peed my pants, but it was sweat. I couldn’t help but laugh at myself. My body was feeling beat up though. Shin pain like a female dog. This happened for longer than the usual 20 minutes.

Icing and compressing. Fantastic. I haven’t move for a while, but now its time to meet my husband for lunch. So that was my week 6 of training, and I am so happy about my times, and the distance. Next week is my 5 miler! Ah! But I honestly hope the rest of my training goes this well.

How was your long run?

Are you having great runs lately?

Are you scared of snakes like me?