Filed under: Run! Run! Run! just as fast as you can...
It has been 4 weeks since my last confession. I made a Chinese New Year’s Resolution to a) sign up for a half-marathon (check!) and b) actually train for said half-marathon. I am unhappy to report that during the first 5 weeks of the year I was doing really well at the training bit; but for the last 4 weeks, um, not so much. (And by “not so much,” I mean “I’ve maybe gone running twice,” and by “running,” I mean “leisurely walk around the block”.)
Yesterday, that all changed. I did a 4-mile run/walk yesterday, and it nearly killed me! Forty-five blocks of uphill terrain… after a while even the downhill bits feel like they are uphill. My neighborhood is situated at the base of a mountain, and the streets are more-or-less terraced as you head upwards; in several places the city has forgone traditional sidewalks for actual staircases. What does all this mean? Precisely this: I can hardly walk because my calves are killing me.
However, my half-marathon is coming up! I’ve got just over 5 weeks to get my butt into half-marathon mode and the rest of me (read: my attitude) ready and willing to actually complete the race. I am not trying to set any records; I just want to finish. I looked up a couple of training schedules; and most of them are 16-18 weeks of daily activity…again, I’ve got five weeks. This will require my kicking some serious butt; specifically, my own. I have a running buddy, someone who also signed up weeks and weeks ago and has hardly started her training. We are now official members of Team Kick-My-Own-Butt; we have regular meetings (Saturday morning breakfast) and scheduled time-tables of activity (must log the miles!). Hey, we may even get T-Shirts!
You know how announcing something to friends (or strangers; hello strangers!) will usually make you more apt to stick to that goal? Yeah, that’s what this is; my half-marathon confessional. I’ve got a not-quite-so-strenuous-as-a-four-mile-uphill-run training scheduled for today; and then tomorrow I’m back to thrashing my own calves.
11 March Re-Resolution: commit to daily training program to prepare for half-marathon. Sign up for another race later in the year to instill another reason to adhere to training program post half-marathon (Race Date: April 19, Yikes!).
So let it be written. So let it be done.
18 Comments so far
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Ah, running is probably by far the excercise I most hate to do. Hence you’d never ever see me running a marathon, or a half, a quarter or… But I can cheer you on anyway! Good luck!
Comment by Pia 2008 March 11 @ 9:45 amYou can do it! If you run every training run between now and then, you’ll make it. Go, Heidi, Go!
Comment by Laurel 2008 March 11 @ 9:53 amyou are more determined than i will ever be in the exercise department so i am definitely impressed.
Comment by Michelle & the City 2008 March 11 @ 10:02 amI agree with commenter #1, running blows hardcore. For some reason, I’ve never been able to get into it. Biking I can do, though. Good luck with your impending doom.
Comment by Sra 2008 March 11 @ 10:03 amI feel your pain. Totally and completely. As I hobbled along on my run this morning, I couldn’t help but believe that I am fully insane. It bites. It really does.
Here’s to some motivation. We’re both going to need it.
Comment by Mona 2008 March 11 @ 10:05 am5 weeks? You can totally do it. Yeah, I need to get working on my running again too. I feel so much better when I stick to consistent workouts!
Comment by Margarita 2008 March 11 @ 10:46 amWorst case scenario is that you walk part of the race. You can totally do it.
Comment by Lou 2008 March 11 @ 11:21 amhoney you can totally do it
i ran a marathon…my longest run was 14 1/2 miles, i walked a good six miles of the actual marathon, i hit my wall at mile 15 and cried the rest of the way but i finished and the joy you will feel when you finally finish it…is amazing.
i trained…very much half assedly but…when was on my game…i trained. check out runners world they might be able to make a modified training plan for you.
good luck!!!!
Comment by legallyheidi 2008 March 11 @ 11:45 amYou can do it! Woo! Good luck!
Comment by katelin 2008 March 11 @ 12:28 pmI totally thought when I read your title that this post was going to be about the pope’s updates to the list of sins. But I was wrong.
This was more interesting, though. Go you for starting to kick yourself back into top form! You can do it!
Comment by Jess 2008 March 11 @ 12:53 pmOh sista – you best get going! I believe in you…but only if you start right now!! Ha!
Comment by Andrea 2008 March 11 @ 3:31 pmYou can doooooooooo it! I will be your cheerleader, even though I am so not a cheerleader. But for you anything!
Comment by janet 2008 March 11 @ 3:35 pmYou can do it – I only half-ass trained for my half last fall, for maybe, um, 4 weeks, and I did it! So you’ll totally kick butt with that extra week of training in there
Comment by Z 2008 March 11 @ 6:17 pmBest of luck to you…those staircases sound like murder!
Comment by allee 2008 March 11 @ 6:51 pmOhh that’s tricky indeed. I say as long as you make sure and do atleast 10 mile runs on the weekends, you should be ok. But you have to make sure to do that! (I’m talking from experience). Then do shorter ones during the week…
Comment by Lindz 2008 March 11 @ 8:17 pmYou Can Do It!
Comment by Trish Ryan 2008 March 12 @ 12:26 pmThere’s a slim chance I could do it too, except that I’m laughing too hard at the image of you kicking your own butt
Had to come by again and let you know that I have an 8k this weekend and I haven’t run in two weeks either… sweet.
Oh and I’m in the raffle for the Nike Womens Half Marathon in San Fran so I may be griping about training a lot in the near future too.
Comment by Lindz 2008 March 12 @ 8:25 pmYou crack me up! I also really enjoy the “so let it be written, so let it be done” quote~ That is a very important quote since it’s almost Easter! At first, we were forced to watch ‘Ten Commandments’ when we were kids on Easter since there was nothing else to watch. Later, we chose to watch it over and over again because it was (let’s face it) very funny! “Joshua!” of “Oh, Moses, Moses!” or “Yi-yi!” But we must have watched it literally a thousand times. And it never got boring!
Comment by Jen 2008 March 14 @ 7:20 am