Tonight I did my first official training run for the half. Oh. My. Goodness. I've been going out and running/walking and have been doing a good job. You can see evidence of that here and here. But, I've just been doing my own thing. I've tried to stick to the days that I'm supposed to based on reading a few books, but I hadn't really started training.
When I signed up for the half, I got a coupon code to get a free training thingy from Active.com. It's a $30 value, so I picked up one of the run/walk training programs. Today was a 35 minute low intensity (hah!) run. It included a 5 minute warm up (but I walked a quarter mile (probably in 5 minutes) and stretched before I started the next part), then a 3 minute run followed by a 2 minute walk. How is it possible that 2 minutes goes by so quickly when 3 minutes takes F-O-R-E-V-E-R to pass by? I know I'm not brilliant, but isn't every minute just 60-seconds? I don't understand... Oh yeah - you're supposed to do this series 7 times for a total of, you guessed it, 35 minutes! Then there's a 5 minute cool down.
David was out there running with me and ran his own pace for pretty much the whole time. We did our warm up walk and then stretched and then started running. I did the first two series well. Then I got to the third one and it started to get a little harder. I was slowing my pace down a bit so David decided to run backwards. I quote "I'll give you something to blog about!" The turd! If I was more coordinated, and not so concerned about ruining my phone with all my sweat, I would get a picture of him while he's running backwards!
We got to a part on the sidewalk where he was running backwards and he was getting ready to step in a pile of dog poop. All I could get out was the word poop. Mind you we were right beside a playground with some kids playing on it and their parents were there. Again, all I could get out of my mouth, besides huffing and puffing for oxygen, was poop! David was like what? I said, "POOP!" He barely missed it. It was the most entertaining part of the evening!
We did another 2 sets and on the 5th set I was about to quit. I felt like I could barely move. Is it possible to hit a wall in a 3-mile run? If it is, then I must have hit a wall. It sucked. And I said so out loud; many times. I'm proud of myself for not swearing though. I was trying to be considerate of the families that were around. :)
On the 6th set I asked David to stop running ahead of me and walk (!) beside me while I was running. Granted, he did have to power walk, but he was still walking... I needed him to distract me so that I wouldn't think about how it took F-O-R-E-V-E-R for those 3-minutes to pass by. He talked to me about movies that are coming out this summer. I don't remember what else.
On our two minute walk between set 6 and 7 I realized that we only had to do 7 and not 8 sets. Then I realized that I made it through my first training run. I couldn't quit then. I didn't want to quit anymore. If I was just one set away from being done, why would I quit? I persevered and came out the other side successful! Maybe I'll actually be able to think of myself as a runner/marathoner (can you call yourself a marathoner if you are just running a half? or even just training for a half?) if I can make it through a few more weeks of this
I created an activity record for this run, but somehow managed to not turn it off when I was doing my stretches. I thought I did. Oh well. Here, you can see my speed. I stopped to stretch at about 6:55. Then we had to walk nearly a half mile back to the car. Then we rode home, I did my plank, and realized that I hadn't stopped my activity. Oh well! I like the peaks and valleys. I'm pretty consistent in my speed, which really surprises me!
Question - What was your first race training run like? Or have you been running/training for so long you don't remember? Does it get easier?!
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