Wondering what all these letters are? Check out my first letter to myself for more details. Every week, I shall be writing a letter to the future half-marathoner of 26 March 2017, sending out good vibes, keeping her training in check and overall pushing her from today until race day. Hope you enjoy it!
I’m linking up with Courtney of Eat Pray Run DC for her Training Recap linkup and HoHo and Tricia for the Weekly Wrap! Do check out their training and other bloggers for some real inspiration!
Dear 26 March Self,
Today’s my second letter to you. In 6 weeks (wait, is it five?), you’ll be tip toeing to the start line of your first half-marathon. I know 6 weeks sounds so close. But, look at how far you have come in the past 6 weeks. The night before your first 8 miler, you were freaking out. You were behind your training schedule A LOT… You missed a 6-miler and a 7-miler. Thanks to those holidays! At this stage, you were planning to give up on training (and get an early refund) because you didn’t have any hope. Three miles was still a struggle for you. But, look at all that you have you accomplished this week:
Monday:
What better way to start my week with some good earned rest. It was a day for an easy run. But, considering you were going to be off on Wednesday, you decided to just enjoy a rest day after work and get in some piano lessons for relaxation.
Tuesday:
Hill repeats: Yeah, we have a love-hate relationship with hills. They make me want to kill my coach, but all said and done, but I bet you’ll be so thankful for these on race day. Overall you did great! You did 3x different hills, each twice – fast run uphill and slow jog downhill. Light easy run as you shuffled between each hill. A total of roughly 2.68 miles. You definitely felt so much stronger compared to last month when you did them and couldn’t get past 5 hill repeats.
Wednesday:
Ahhhhh – your day off from work. Remember how you enjoyed this day so much! It’s always alright to take a pause when life becomes overwhelming. Give yourself all that self-love that you deserve. You’ll only come back stronger and braver. The plan was to do Monday’s easy run today. You thought 4 miles – not bad, I can get that done. The good weather and the properly fueled breakfast (with coffee of course), lead it to a solid tempo run.
Warm up: 1.48 miles @17:49/mile
Tempo: 1.35 miles @14:44/mile –> How did that happen?
Cool down: 1.53 miles @16:51/mile
Thursday:
This weather has got to stop fluctuating! You felt feverish all over and decided to skip your easy run for this week.
Friday:
Mandatory rest day! It’s alright you missed an easy 4-mile run on Thursday. You can always make up for it. I made sure to eat really healthy and drink loads of fluids in preparation for your tomorrow’s long run. Also, good 8 hours of solid sleep. You’ll thank me tomorrow.
Saturday:
Long Run by the Baltimore Promenade. You’ve run this route a bunch of times. And yet, hugging the water as you run, makes it so much easier. It was a quasi cutback week. So, you did 8 miles @15:52/mile in 2:06:59
Splits –> 14:37, 15:38, 17:32, 16:09, 16:04, 15:21, 15:53, 15:45/mile
We need to have some serious talk on those uneven splits. And what’s with taking your first mile that fast? That’s faster than your 5k pace.
Sunday:
Well, this recovery run hasn’t yet happened as I write this letter to you. You’re in need of some motivation. But, I promise you, once this blog post is up, you’ll be doing either a 30 min recovery run or 30 min of yoga for some relaxation.
Overall, you felt happy about the week. You didn’t obsess about missing a run. Good job on keeping it cool. Great hill repeats. Solid tempo run of 14:44/mile. That’s your 5k pace. Good job on that. Your long run was definitely a huge confidence booster. But, could you please learn how to pace better? If not, at least start off conservatively. You did feel amazing after your long run, in spite of the fast start. Thumbs up on that! You had absolutely no soreness. Double thumbs up on that. It just shows that in order to achieve anything, you got to put in all the hard work that you can. There are no shortcuts in training! You ran your long run at half-marathon pace. Good job on that! But, slow down next week so that you don’t blow yourself out at the end. Next week is not easy girl. It’s 12 solid miles. For the first time ever. So be good about your food and water throughout the week. Take each day as it comes. You have two more super heavy weeks of running, before it’s taper time. So, be smart and cautious! You’re almost there.
Love,
Your T-6 weeks self
PS: You don’t know Math. It’s 5 weeks until your half-marathon. Not six.
*****
Great week and hope you took it outside for your recovery run today – the weather is stunning!
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Yes indeed… I might just go do that now! Thanks for stopping by 🙂
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Your training sounds like it’s going great! I love reading about Pennsylvania races. I’m hoping to do one (or several, eventually)…our oldest daughter is living in Hanover (near Gettysburg), and I’m looking forward to seeing more of the state 😉
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Yes. I’ve heard great stuff about Philly races… Particularly about them being mostly flat. That sounds so neat for you to try one out. I know Rock and Roll Philly is in Sept. Just saying 🙂
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Sounds like you had a good week of training. I never do hill repeats. Sometimes I feel guilty not getting a run in, but sometimes you just need that extra day of rest. I feel like my run always goes better the following day after taking that rest day.
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I would agree… I’ve come to realize that my body likes just 4 days of running. The 5th is always forced and pushing it. I just take it by the week and see how I feel for the 5th.
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I love how you wrote a letter to you race day self!! I might try that too. Great idea
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Thanks. These are thoughts I always say to myself while running. So why not blog it, thought I. Thanks for stopping by.
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Love this! Looks like you have made so much progress. And isn’t it annoying to find out that you have 5 and not 6 weeks? At least you can look at it as you will be done and a half marathoner in just five weeks! Keep up the great work.
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Haha. I kinda freaked myself out when I realized it. Yes, in a good way, I can’t wait for race day. It’s been exciting training!
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Great job with training this week! Hill repeats are killer, I need to do them more often though, we don’t have that many hills where I live so it’s difficult to do hill training without travelling out to do them!
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That’s true! If I didn’t do hill repeats with my running group, I am sure I wouldn’t do them at all 🙂
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You should be very proud of your progress so far! Five weeks until your race? How exciting! I think we all need to treat ourselves with a day off to relax and recharge. It’s great you are doing hill repeats and tempo runs in your training. They will definitely pay off come race day. Thanks for linking, Madhuri.
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Thanks HoHo (I am assuming that’s your name until I find out). An extra day off really did the trick to calm the overwhelmed me. Thanks for the support and thanks for stopping by. It’s great you’re hosting the weekly link up. Brings so much of positivity and good spirits together.
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Great job this past week! Hill repeats are so challenging and you did a great job! It’s exciting to see yourself progress from week to week. Pacing is always tough to get a handle on but with more long runs you’ll continue to get that groove 🙂
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Yes. I have my first 12-miler this week. Hoping to take it slow, so that I don’t crash and burn later. You’ll know in a week how that turns out 🙂
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You know I really like the concept of writing a letter to your self! What a neat twist! Your doing great motivating yourself and good luck on that 12 miler!! 🙂
Thanks so much for joining us for the Weekly Wrap, I look forward to following your training !
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Thanks Tricia for that words of encouragement. It was my pleasure to join the weekly wrap and get to know so many fantastic bloggers! Thanks for stopping by 🙂
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