Oh yeah… a half marathon. In May. Two months before that triathlon I’m so excited about.
Maybe I should start running.
Track Repeat Tuesdays are awesome, but that’s only a few miles. I’ve been swimming twice a week, doing spin-class once a week, and running under 10 miles a week total. That will make for a tough half marathon in May if I don’t take April seriously… and maybe even if I do.
So this morning I headed out for a long run.
I planned to do 7 miles, but it was a beautiful day… there’s a loop I really enjoy… it turned into 9.
The great news is… I made it.
My legs were like “9 miles? O.k.” I was like “Really?!”
I may not have been running a lot recently, but I’ve been really active. Some of it must be translating, because what hurt the most when I got home was the blisters that started forming around mile 5 because I wore the wrong socks. My legs felt tired, but not as tired as I thought they’d feel after running twice as far as they’ve run at once since November.
I’m thrilled, because I was starting to really worry that this half marathon in May was going to be a horrible idea since I’ve been swimming and biking in addition to running and my mileage has suffered.
I realize that running is the best preparation for running, but I think I’m in much better shape than if I’d been idle on those days that I was cross-training.
If I feel reasonably good tomorrow, I’ll be tempted to increase it to 10 miles next week, which would give me five solid weeks of double digit long-runs in preparation for the half in May. That’s enough to finish without walking and drink the free beer at the finish-line without throwing up.
And that’s what really matters.
It’s not like I’m trying to cure cancer here.
That’s the next race 🙂
Well done Kelly. I think you’ll be ok. Mine is in April and I’m doing the long runs and cross training. It’s the mid-week runs I need to work on. We can do this!
Nice work! Hope your legs hold up ok!