I may or may not have had shoes similar to these. Whatever, Brooklyn’s in my blood.
This past week marked week one of my Brooklyn Half training. I still haven’t quite figured out how to train for it – my goal is to run a sub 2 half, so eventually I’m going to have to get serious with speed work. For now, I’m loosely following the Hal Higdon Novice 1 guide, just to make sure I’m getting my required mileage.
Last year (for both half marathons) the long runs were my “goal” runs to build endurance and every weekly long run was a small victory for me. Since I’ve been good about maintaining my long runs (do I get a cookie?), I’m not so worried this time about the endurance aspect. Enter speed training.
I’ve been doing it mostly by feel and focusing on negative splits, which I’m sure isn’t the best way to do it. Basically, I start each run at around a 9:30 pace and slowly decrease my time. This coming week I want to start doing intervals on my shorter runs, but I’m going to start oh-so-informally (aka “hey, the Mass bridge is ahead, I’ll give max effort to that, then return to normal speed for a minute”). By week three, I’d like to start doing real intervals using my watch and the treadmill at the gym.
A rundown of my past week:
- Monday: rest day
- Tuesday: 3 miles, 27:47 (early morning run with my husband)
- Wednesday: 2 miles, 17:54 (legs felt like lead for some reason)
- Thursday: 3 miles, 26:45 (treadmill at the gym)
- Friday: rest
- Saturday: lazy rest (long run scheduled, decided to postpone until Sunday)
- Sunday: 6.5 miles, 1:00:25 (first 1.5 with husband, looped around and into Boston, run fuel courtesy of patê and wine from the night before, we’re fancy like that).
Weekly Total: 14.5 miles
Yum.
As you can see, I’ve done no cross- or strength- training. Bad, I know. I plan to incorporate more this week.
In the meantime, it’s Oscar night! To be honest, I haven’t seen a single movie up for nomination, but it’s a perfectly good excuse to eat fancy foods (bison burgers and sweet potato fries. To each their own, right?) and drink wine. I’ll be rooting for Jennifer Lawrence. For every category. I feel like that’s a safe bet.
On My Last Legs 