We all knew I wouldn't stay away from running too long. :) Since I decided against doing the Mini this spring, I signed up for the Geist Half Marathon on May 19th. There are so many appealing things about less popular races-- fewer crowds to fight with, smaller corralls, easier transportation to/from the race site, etc. I also like the timing of this race, because I have a couple more weeks into May for my training. The Mini always sneaks up since it's the very first Saturday in May, so really your training for that one has to be complete by the end of April--and there are only so many days in January-February where running outside is ok. I'm not that hardcore when it comes to running in wintery mixes (favorite weather phrase ever).
I'm toying around with following Galloway's "Half Marathon for Time Goal" training program, since I had such great success with his marathon program. I just don't like that this schedule has you going all the way up to 17 miles. I get the theory...if you can run a longer distance at a certain pace, then you'll be able to run a smaller distance even faster. But I thought my days of running more than 13.1 miles were over. I like the added features of cadence runs and doing rounds of 800-meter runs on the weekends instead of just gradually increasing distance each week. I haven't incorporated things like that into my training before, so that puts some spark back into the runs. The program is 15 weeks long, so I'll need to commit by the first full week of February.
I'm excited to get back into running for the wonders it does with keeping body fat down. I've picked up 4 pesky pounds since Christmas, and I can tell exactly where they're camping out on my body. I know 4 pounds is nothing to complain about, and in fact, it was expected between all the 3 course meals I had during the weeks of "Devour Downtown." Hopefully after some long-distance runs, I'll feel back to normal!
