Back to Running Business

Okay, so I'm officially less than 3 weeks away from my first (well I guess second) attempt to achieve sub 2 hour half marathon success.  I'll be toeing the line at the Mercer Island half marathon on March 25 and I'm am actually pretty excited.  I've been running a lot faster these days and while I'm following no training plan what-so-ever I am following the "make every run count" plan.  Since I'm only running 3 times a week I make sure each run is challenging in some way (incorporates a hill, speed training, or a long run).  This works for ME since I'm currently obsessed with weight training...I can do BOTH!

I had some speedy (for me!) runs last week that went down like this.  You can follow me on DailyMile if you just can't wait for my weekly reports.

Tuesday: 6x400m on the treadmill
This workout included a half mile warmup at 6.0 and then 400m at 7.0, back to 400m for 6.0 and repeat until I got 6 speedy intervals in there.  I covered 3.25 miles in about 31 minutes. 

Friday: Treadmill Sprints!
I really had no plan for this workout but I was feeling energetic so I went with it.  I warmed up for a mile at 6.0 then turned the treadmill up to 8.0mph.  I sprinted for 30 seconds then rested on the side of the treadmill for 30 seconds.  8.0 actually wasn't too dreadful so I made it more dreadful by turning it up to 8.5. I did 15-30 second sprints and then cooled down for 5 minutes.  The whole workout took 30 minutes.

Sunday: Long Run
I headed out on the Burke Gilman trail Sunday morning and reminisced about my marathon training nearly the entire time.  Mostly, how I didn't have to run 14, 16, 18, or 20 miles, which made 10 miles easy peasy!  I kept the pace comfortable and ended up running it in 1:35 about a 9:30 pace.  The best feeling was knowing that I could run faster and that I WILL in the half marathon.

In case you don't want to do the math in order to come in at 1:59 at the half I have to maintain an average pace of 9:05 for the whole race which actually sounds very scary to me but I think I can manage sub 9 miles for a majority of the race giving me time to slow down towards the end.  I think I can I think I can...

So, in an effort to act more like an runner I'm going to up the running to 4 days a week up to the half.  My legs were TIRED after the 10 yesterday and they are a little sore today which isn't usually the case for me so I think they need a little more time on the road.  Like the actual road, not the treadmill one I've become so accustomed too lately ;).

Is this no picture post super boring already?  Here is some food porn for you:

Okay, so my camera phone picture sucks

But you can head over to PaleOMG and look at her 100% better photos and even better, make this dish: Honey Ginger Apple Shredded Pork.  AMAZING!  I ended up getting a 2.5lb pork roast from Whole Foods for 10 bucks and the other ingredients are super cheap and I had all the spices so this made one easy cheap meal and I'm pretty sure I'll be eating all week long.


I don't mention too much what I eat on this blog because I have no intention of ever showing you a picture of everything I eat but I've been playing with the Paleo diet mostly because of how breads, pastas and other heavy carbs behave in my stomach.  I haven't fully committed yet and don't know if I'm going to but if I do I'll let you know what it's like if I do.

Have a great week!

Question: Any of my readers out there doing the paleo thing or have tried it?