Half Marathon Training: Week 8
I’m now halfway through the training for my first half marathon, the Rock ‘n’ Roll San Antonio Half Marathon. Week 8 was a cut back week, with just 4 runs scheduled, all of which were supposed to be 6 miles at 10:08/mile. I didn’t even cross train on the 3 non-running days. However, I did drop my 6 miler on Friday in favor of my first 10K race this past Saturday.
Aside from my race, I probably ran this week’s runs too fast. Here are my workouts:
- Day 1
- Rest – I was not feeling very good most of this day, and by the time I got home, there was barely enough time to get dinner ready before the start of the Cowboys vs. Eagles.
- Day 2
- Scheduled: 6 miles easy @ 10:08/mile – I was still not feeling good Tuesday morning, so this run was pushed back until the evening, when I finally started feeling better. I broke the scheduled 6 miles down into 2 runs, 3 miles by myself, and 3 miles with Julie, with about 5 minutes in between the end of the first and the start of the second.
- First 3 miles: Since I hadn’t been feeling good, the plan was to really take it easy. By the end of the first mile, I was feeling good, so I decided to run at what I hope is my half marathon pace the rest of the way (9:00/mile). My mile splits were:
- Second 3 miles: Again, these were supposed to be easy miles, but Julie had other plans. She set out at a 9:30/mile pace, and I lagged behind for most of the first 2 miles. We ran together for the first half of mile 3, and then I started to surge ahead. A couple of untimely cars forced me to stop with about .25 mile to go, which allowed Julie to pull back even with me, and we finished out the third mile pretty close together. Here are the splits:
- Day 3
- Rest – I did have a baseball practice to coach, so it wasn’t like I was completely lazy...
- Day 4
- Scheduled: 6 miles easy @ 10:08/mile - Since there was a chance that I'd be racing this past weekend, I decided to work a couple of faster miles into this run. The first two miles were at an easy warm up pace, then I pushed the next two miles, and then finished with two warm down miles. I actually ran the final mile without looking at my Garmin...trying to just run on feel. It was a little fast, but not too bad. The splits:
- 10:11
- 9:56
- 8:54
- 8:40
- 10:10
- 9:39
- Day 5
- Rest - I really wanted to get a couple of easy miles with strides in, but it wasn't meant to be.
- Day 6
- Race Day: My very first 10K. It felt good, really good. I enjoyed racing this distance, and I look forward to doing more 10Ks, especially now that I've done one and have a better sense of what I can handle pace-wise. My time was 55:21.
- Day 7
- Scheduled: 6 miles @ 10:08/mile - Being the day after my 10K, I was a little tired. Once I got going, and my legs loosened up, I felt pretty good. Splits:
- 10:03
- 9:50
- 9:48
- 9:45
- 9:43
- 9:17 (practicing fast finish in the last tenth of a mile—Garmin says that I hit a 3:18/mile pace at the end!)
All in all, this was a good week of running, though it was probably not as easy as it should have been. The important thing is that all of my runs felt really good.