Happy Friday!
Guess what?! Yesterday I signed up for my second half marathon — the National Half Marathon in Washington, D.C. on March 26, 2011!
My grad school friends and I have been talking for awhile now about wanting to do a half marathon in the spring, but we were debating between a bunch in different locations, including the D.C. National Half. So when I heard yesterday that a bunch of my blogger BFF’s had just signed up for the National Half, the decision was made! D.C. Half Marathon or bust 🙂
As most of you know, I ran my first half marathon in June of this year in Annapolis, MD.
It was actually one of the most torturous things I’ve ever done. I was well trained (my training plan can be found here) and had done up to 12 mile runs, but it was literally 95 degrees and 100 percent humidity on race day. I will never do another long summer race, that’s for sure.
Can you see how miserable I was in these race pictures? I think heat and humidity are my running kryptonite. In my original race photo post, I titled the photo on the left below “I Have No Idea Why I’m Doing This To Myself or What I’m Doing With My Hands,” and the photo on the right was affectionately named: “Hot Sunny No Shade Hilly Bridge of Death.”
It was bad, friends. Read my race recap… it’s kind of entertaining in a painful way, particularly the mile-by-mile breakdown.
Anyway! Even though I’ve decided I enjoy shorter races and working on speed more than long distance running, I really want to do another half so I can do as well as I should have last time! I finished in 2:04:03 last time, which I’m REALLY proud of considering the conditions. But I want to finish a half in under 2 hours 🙂
I’ll be posting my new training plan as soon as I make it, and I’m also going to start ramping up the strength training again — particularly in my legs. Long time readers will remember that I had a lot of knee trouble while training for the Army Ten Miler in the fall of 2009. If you just started reading my blog you might think I’ve always been doing long races, but the Army Ten Miler in October 2009 was actually my first “long” race (I’d only done 5 milers and 5k’s before it):
Between lots of leg strength training, lots of icing, and lots of foam rolling, I was able to train for and run the Cherry Blossom 10 Miler in the spring, followed by my half marathon in June, without any knee issues. (For more details about how I worked to overcome my knee injury, check out this post.)
I’m excited for this new challenge, and I hope you guys will enjoy following along as I ramp up my training and running mileage once again!
Have you ever run a half marathon or marathon? Any tips for my second time around?
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I’m off to my last day of work — it’s been fun being back in the office and seeing my work friends again, but I’m excited for a real break next week! I’m ready to sleep in, laze around in front of the TV in my pajamas, go running in the middle of the afternoon, do some long-overdue updating for the blog, and see family and friends. Plus, I still have to do my Christmas shopping! 🙂
