Doing it all again

Days To Race: 88

This past February, almost on my "runiversary", I ran the Disney Princess Half Marathon.  When I started training for it, I really had no clue what I was getting myself into.  I started running (again, but honestly, the first time was more walking quickly than running) in February 2011, did a Warrior Dash in June, a regular 5K in August (and came in 4th for my age group! full disclosure: there were 79 people in the whole race), then I signed up for the Tufts 10K for Women in October.  We decided to go to Disney for February vacation, and the last day of our vacation was the Half.  After much cajoling, I convinced my Hubby to extend our vacation the extra day and I signed up for the race.

I was lucky considering I trained in MA in the winter.  We had a relatively mild winter, plus they plow the path around the Charles.  I made it to 13 miles a few weeks before the race, and was able to finish in 2:34:49 including a potty break (for the full race report check out my other blog here). But, there were a few less than wonderful runs including the 10-12 mile run that I tried turning into a 13 mile run but ended up being an 8 mile run when I called home, in tears, asking for ride from a Dunks 5 miles from home.

So after a spring of drifting around aimlessly in the running world, getting two or three 3 miles run in a week (or 1 run... yeah, it got that bad), and doing another Warrior Dash with less than sufficient strength training, I decided I needed to get back to some serious mileage and I needed a good goal. After the Tufts 10K and the Princess, I've kinda got a liking for the women centric races, at least for the longer distances.  The ZOOMA Half in Cape Cod seemed to fit the bill.  It's the inaugural race at this location, and the start line is right next to Old Silver Beach, which is where we take the boys most weekends in the summer.  My father in law lives about 15 minutes away, so I've got a place to sleep the night before and the boys can actually watch me run/finish (unlike Disney, where they got stuck on a bus...). Plus it's a small race (1000 people, heck the whole race is smaller than my Disney corral!) and instead of a finisher's medal, you get a finisher's necklace, which I'll probably add the charm to my "running charm bracelet". 

So, why the new blog? You would think that I've done this before, so I can do it again.  Yeah, I know that if I work at it, I'll be able to run 13.1 miles (hell, I walked ~13 miles a day for a week, ran 13.1 miles, then walked another 7 or so miles that day). But I still remember Mile 10 and the damn on-ramp; Mile 12 and my premature speed burst that lead to too much walking (note to specators: do NOT say "you're almost there" unless it is less than a half mile to the finish line); getting picked up 5 miles from home; sitting on the side of the road, half way up a hill, in tears when a cop stopped to make sure I was ok (I told him "the hill beat me", he responded "as long as it was just the hill". Lesson learned: chose your words carefully when talking with the police.).  So, I figured if I started writing down everything, there would be enough good stuff to re-read to pull me through the less good stuff.  I'm also going to post my training calendar before I actually run it (ok, run a lot of it, I've already started) so I know that the "Interwebz" is holding me accountable.

So far, I've signed up the for race (Step 1!) and did a speed workout, a "long" run (5 "hilly, humid, near home" miles) and eeked out a pathetic 3 "flat, work" miles and a few strength sessions (yeah, it's after the Warrior dash, but I now have definition on my arms, and I'm keeping it!).