Running

I've now been in trainig for... 6 weeks or so. I am using the walk/run plan designed by Jeff Galloway. I truly believe that without this plan I would not be where I am now. I don't know how people can literally run all those miles-I'm very attached to my walk breaks and I believe they are better for me than running until I feel like I'm going to pass out.

I started out running for 15 minutes or so and doing 15:45. 15 seconds running, 45 seconds running. As I got stronger I increased my time and upped the running. I am now at about 2.5:1 (in minutes). I am really trying for 3 minutes, much easier on the stop watch. I run with a stop watch so I can keep track of what I'm doing and when I need switch from one to the other. I run with a small handheld water bottle that is my savior when I'm running and of course, tunes. I love my shuffle and that's what I always run with. I have fun things on there, anything I think that might keep me motivated. I often skip songs but there is a lot on there.

Since this is my first half marathon I'm not supposed to be worried about pace, but I would love to do it in an under 12 min/mi pace. I'm Hoping for around 11:30 but we will see. Along the way I do these things calls magic miles to see how fast I really am. Last weekend was the first and I ran a mile in 8:32! Incredible! Now that was only one and I was dead afterwards but I was pretty impressed with myself. From there Jeff recommends a 10 minute pace for training and a 12 minute pace for the run itself. I'm getting stronger everyday!

Sometimes I don't want to run. Sometimes I don't want to get out of bed to do the run before school and the long runs still freak me out. 8 miles on Saturday! I think it's mostly that its lonely. I'm lonely sometimes without being out running. I don't have a lot of friends here and most of the ones that I do are in the city so it hard to see them often outside of school. So for me, having another thing that is lonely isn't really needed and sometimes I have a hard time getting past that. Toshi used to run with me at the beginning but he doesn't anymore.

Time to go. Alexander lesson and a busy day!