First Half Marathon Training Plan!

This post really should be called, “The day in which Melissa thought it was Wednesday the whole time.”  But that’s admittedly less interesting.

You know I’ll use any excuse to reference Arrested Development.

I was actually really proud of my productivity today – I did some recruit shiz for work, grocery shopped, made a new recipe for dinner, and created my half marathon training plan (see below!).  My new recipe was taken from my most recent cookbook purchase, Steamy Kitchen’s Healthy Asian Favorites.  I made the Thai Curry (using quinoa instead of rice since I made a big batch for this week), and it was….AWESOME.

And of course involved my favorite rooster:

The kitten was also extremely productive.

Now to the main event!

Half Marathon Training

As you can see on the “Races” tab, I’m scheduled to run my very first half marathon in May.  I chose the Portland Rock N Roll half for a few reasons:  it’s big (lots of cheers/support), it has live bands every mile, and the course runs through one of my favorite cities (which is also close to my hometown).  As an added bonus, Andy Grammer is playing at the afterparty. 

Hell yeah.  Oh, and there’s beer, but by now you should know that I rarely do a race without the promise of alcohol. 

Since my main goal is to finish this half (I’m hoping for a bare minimum of 10:00/mi), I chose the Hal Higdon half marathon Novice training plan, and adjusted it a bit for my own needs:

The main changes I made were getting rid of a run/cross day and replacing it with strength or a strength circuit.  Since I’ve had injuries in the past, I really didn’t want to run on consecutive days – and I want to make sure I keep up with strength training.  I also edited the long runs so I’ll be doing a 12-miler by the end of the plan.  It’s much easier for me to conceptualize doing ONE extra mile, rather than 3 on race day. 

I’m really excited for this!  I feel like I’ll still have some variety in my workouts while building mileage, rather than running ALL THE TIME.

If you have any advice on preventing injuries, let me know!  I’m planning on foam rolling and stretching/compressing after every run, and maybe icing as well!

What was your first race?

My first ever running race was a spontaneous 5k on my college campus to raise money for a kids program – I decided to do it the day before!

Do you use training plans or do you fly solo?

This is my first time using a plan – for my previous 5 and 10k’s I didn’t really train too much, just made an effort to run more.