Week 10 Report

Hal Higdon's 12 week Intermediate 1/2 Marathon Training Plan has been working great. My times have become so much better in the last couple of weeks. I have been using the composite track at school for my speed work and I have enjoyed the opportunity to really do what is on the training schedule and my times show it.

This week I had a little difficulty getting to school for training in time on Tuesday so I had to change my training order but once I got that all sorted out the results were great. I had a 45 minute Tempo Run on Thursday and busted an 8:09 mile to finish that effort - by far my fastest continuous mile. Then, on Saturday, after a day of complete rest, I ran a toasty 44:47 five mile Pace Run for an 8:57 average! This exceeds my goal of 9:09 so I'm pleased with that trend.

Sunday, I got to rehearse the race using all of the props. I filled the bottles on my "fuel belt" with G2 (low calorie Gatorade) and tucked in some GU energy gel. It was an incredibly beautiful day with a 60 degree temperature reading at 10:00 a.m. I was relaxed and ready and averaged 10:30 over the course of the 11 mile run finishing with a time of 1:44:47. This time is within the expected range (actually a bit faster) that Hal wants you to run during the long training sessions. I had a GU every 30 or so minutes and drank G2 as needed. I felt good throughout the run and was able to pick up the pace at the end to finish mile 11 in 8:57.

After a day of rest on Monday, week 11 begins with a bang - 10 x 400 intervals but then the taper begins. Although Sunday's run will be a 12 miler, I won't have a challenging pace run the day before.

I'm starting to get excited about this race. It will be fun for lots of reasons - First, Allison will be running with me, second, I think I'm ready to meet the challenge I've set for myself, and third, I've already exceeded what I thought was possible for myself.

While I don't want to look beyond this race, I'm beginning to think about what might be possible in the future. Could I qualify to run Boston? Hmmmm.....