Half done!

I ran my first ever half-marathon on Sunday!

It was in the plan, and although I only managed 9 out of the 12 miles I should have run last week (due to illness), and have only run twice in the past fortnight (due to illness and laziness), and I was getting a visit from Aunt Flo at the time – I bloody did it!

I wasn’t nervous this time. In fact I was almost excited the evening before: thinking I was going to run that far, achieve that goal.

There is not much to say about the run itself – it was the same as the 9 and the 10 and the other 9, just a bit longer. It was fine at times and difficult at others.

I tried to keep it slow and relaxed just to be able to cover the distance, I drank my bottle too early and had to run into a shopping centre to get (‘Caution-Hot Water’) water from the bathroom taps (yuk!) and I struggled around the 10 mile mark, but once I knew I could finish it, I perked up a bit, and tried to reach my target time of sub-2:40.

The last km or so I tried to find Taylor Swift’s ‘Shake It Off’ to run too (I always find it gets my legs going) so was skipping all the songs on my mp3 player trying to find it, but settled on a Pink song (good enough to keep me moving) to try and get me to finish in time. My Garmin made it look like I had done it in bang on 2:40, but syncing with Garmin/Strava I only got a time of 2:40:21 (which is odd as I stopped the watch on 2:40:20 but I guess elapsed time was much more).

I supposed it doesn’t matter…

I RAN A HALF! WOOHOO!

I want to get back on it this week – matching the plan run for run, as I think I am starting to want this now. I want to get to that marathon, and do it as well as I can (making sure I am comfortably within the 6-hour time limit imposed!).

That may have to mean a few changes to diet etc. too as I can’t continue to put on weight as I am, even over the fact I am running so much more now. So probably need to think/look at that… Boo hiss…

Training Plan Status:
Weeks completed: 8/18
Runs completed: 25/72 (planned: 32)
Miles run: 128.6 (planned: 153)
Longest run: 13.1 miles (20/03)

(Will restart all the counts now I’ve completed the half, as what has or hasn’t gone before now probably doesn’t matter – I need to concentrate on the next 10 weeks to the marathon – ahhhh!!!!)