Tag: Training Plans

NaNoWriMo* – Day 8 of 30

What my imagination says I look like when I start running.

Day 1 of Training is in the books. Here’s how it went down…

Yesterday, my Garmin Watch Coach ( Coach Amy – who BTW, seems super nice after watching the recorded training plan introduction video) instructed me to warm-up for 2 minutes by jogging easy, then run hard for 5 minutes and then cool down by jogging easy for 2 minutes. Piece of cake right? I almost threw up.

Are you the competitive type?

Well, as much as I try to just chill and take it easy, I can’t help pushing the envelope in ways that are probably not in my best interest. Maybe it was because when I started out jogging “lightly” in my neighborhood, I had to pass two neighbors and I didn’t want them to think a 10-minute mile was all I had in me – right?

So my light jog, turned into more of a “threshold pace”, that’s runner terminology for the pace at which your muscles start fatiguing at a rapid rate.  Not a good way to start my benchmark run. Plus, it meant that the 5 minutes of “running hard” was going to have to be faster, so I got myself into a predicament by letting stupid pride get in the way. Note to self… remind myself that I am no longer 26 🙂

Anyway, with my breathing elevated (and no easy warm-up), I had to move into “running hard” which was unfortunate because like I said, I already was running hard. Now I had to run harder… for 5 long minutes!!!

To make matters worse, MORE neighbors out walking and waving, while I am beat red, sweating profusely and clearly working harder than I should be. Thankfully, I was able to force a smile and pass them before they could offer to call me an ambulance.

Five grueling minutes later, I was able to move into cool down mode – this time with no choice but to jog lightly. Thankfully, no more neighbors to impress.

And, there it is, in the books, Day 1 of my 20 weeks of training for my March Half-Marathon. How is your training going?

*If you’re wondering what NaNoWriMo is… it stands for National Novel Writing Month. NaNoWriMo is an annual event that began in 1999 as a challenge to writers to write a novel of 50,000 words in one month! Whew, crazy right? Not everyone uses this challenge to write a novel. Take me for example, I signed up for NaNoWriMo and challenged myself to write one blog post every day for a month and that is what you are seeing in these NaNoWriMo posts!!!

NaNoWriMo* – Day 7 of 30

Put me in Coach, I’m ready to run!

The last time I ran a Boston qualifying time was in 1986. I’ll save you the calculation – that’s 34 years ago! A lot has happened in those 34 years, but I thought it would be fun to look back at that year and see how I set up my training. If it worked back then, why not give it another go!

I ran one half-marathon in the Spring of 1986 – it was the Lake County Half-Marathon and it was in April. I remember it was the weekend we changed our clocks for daylight savings, because we got 1 less hour of sleep that night.

Searching for upcoming spring races in North Carolina, I found a half-marathon March 27, 2021 that hasn’t yet been cancelled. The Sunset Beach Half-Marathon. At the very least it should be scenic! It will be interesting to see how my current running compares to my much younger self 🙂

Once you have a race goal in mind, if you can, sign up and pay for it! This will give you extra motivation to put in the necessary work.

Now that I have my target race, I can setup a training plan – you should too!

I love this easy Date Calculator. I typed in today’s date and my selected race date and calculated the difference to be 140 days. That’s 20 weeks. Most coaches suggest training for 14 – 26 weeks, depending on your race, experience, pace goal and running base, so I should be in good shape having 20 weeks to train.

You can browse through several different training plans in the Running Resources Tab to find a training plan that suits you.

Training starts today – I’m so excited!!!

*If you’re wondering what NaNoWriMo is… it stands for National Novel Writing Month. NaNoWriMo is an annual event that began in 1999 as a challenge to writers to write a novel of 50,000 words in one month! Whew, crazy right? Not everyone uses this challenge to write a novel. Take me for example, I signed up for NaNoWriMo and challenged myself to write one blog post every day for a month and that is what you are seeing in these NaNoWriMo posts!!!