A Half Time That Scares Me

I've been gone for awhile now from the blog world, and every off season I think I'm finished with the blog. Then when the season starts, I end up having a lot on my mind and thinking that I should share with people the craziness that my brain goes through when I'm training.

First off, I'm in a new running group through Beyond Exercise. When our fearless leader, Rick, decided to leave our old group an start a brand new venture, many of us followed him. So although I'm with a new group, a lot of the people are the same and I'm enjoying the more social aspect that a small business brings to the table. Today we even had a party with beer, mimosas, chocolate milk, bagels, music, and shopping!

Second, I'm training for my 4th half marathon. Half marathons have actually become something that seem fun to me, but then I had to go and ruin it by trying to push my pace. In the fall, I will attempt to run a 2 hour half marathon. This means my pace will have to be a consistent 9:09 per mile. That is crazy fast for me! At the moment, I honestly can't remember the pace of my first three half marathons. I know they have to be somewhere on this blog. I want to say my first was in the 2:40 range. Something I do know is that I have gotten consistently faster with each race, making my fastest half marathon 2 hours and 8 minutes. So I know that 8 minutes may not seem like a lot to shave off, but running that pace was very challenging for me. That to me means I had already shaved off at least 30 minutes from previous races. It was honestly a surprise that I was able to finish it in that time. I know I've said before multiple times that I want to challenge myself, but as the season started, my runs were complete garbage trash. I now think I need to give myself more credit and realize that the heat and humidity play a huge role in this, but at the time we started I was becoming very discouraged. I was getting out of breath quickly and felt like I couldn't keep up. I was always falling back and then doubting my abilities. The good news is, my past 2 runs have felt much more doable. Hmmmm....and it has been slightly cooler and less humid!

This season I want to try and keep my confidence up whether the runs are good or bad. I want to not be afraid of the 2:00 half marathon, but instead try and conquer it head on. For those of you along for the journey, I'll try not to say the same story I've said for the past year, but in reality it will probably be a series of whines and triumphs as usual!