Addicted to Half Marathons? Me?!? (and race re-cap)

I can generally run any race 10K and under without too much training effort.  Because of this, I tend to be a total slacker when it comes to training, which sort of defeats my goal of kicking ass.

Half Marathons on the other hand, really require me to get my act into gear.  13.1 miles is LONG compared to the 3-6 mile racing I normally do.  I can't just wake-up and say "Hey!! I think I'm going to run 13 miles at race pace today!" and expect to be living the next day.  I need to training consistently for MONTHS in order for me to run that distance without stopping (or painfully dying on the side of the road).

The up-side to training for a half marathon is that I end up getting really fit and feel great about myself!  So....that's what I'm going to do.  At this point and time I don't have a race in mind.  I'll be following the intermediate half training program from Cool Running and will be pre-training before starting the program.  My goal is to be able to consistently do the pre-training mileage without stopping and then start the actual program.  Once I get going I'll start looking for a race to coincide with the end of my program.

My Schedule:

From Cool Running Website

So... speaking of races, I ran the Evan's Run 10K for Autism in Norwell, MA yeasterday.  It was about 80 degrees and sunny, which meant that I was sweating well before the race began.  My best friend ran with me the whole way which was great and bad all at the same time.  It was bad because I didn't get to stop as many times as I would have liked...but it was great because I couldn't stop as much as I wanted to and ended up finishing sooner than if I were on my own.  I do have to admit that it was kind of cool to have a cheerleader shouting encouragement and telling me how much more we had to go for 6.2 miles when all I wanted to do was lay down and die.  Of course I felt all of these HAPPY thoughts of gratitude towards my spritely friend as soon as I no longer had to run.  During the race....not so much.  :)

My finishing time was 1:01:26 for 6.2 miles, which translated into a pace of 9:57.  My pace last year was less (9:42), but it was also 20 degrees cooler and partially cloudy.

I was a little disappointed in myself because I hadn't made the time to get some miles in before the race.  My quads felt weak, especially during the hills, and (what I can only guess is) my IT band started to tweak out around mile 4.  But, I kept going.  I finished.  And then we proceeded to McGreal's Pub to sit out on their deck and enjoy the copious amounts of free after-race beers and burgers that awaited us.

At least dinner the night before was awesome.  I wanted a pasta dish but without a heavy sauce.  Our go-to blog, Skinny Taste, gave us this:

Pasta with Italian sausage, peppers, and escarole - Recipe from Skinny Taste

We added fire roasted diced tomatoes and used hot Italian chicken sausage from whole foods.  It was really tasty.  While we were at Whole Foods, I thought it might be an excellent idea to get some cookies.  We got a macadamia toffee cookie and some crazy lots of nuts and dried fruit cookie.  They were , of course, delicious.

Tasty Cookies from the Whole Foods Bakery