Halfway

I mentioned in a previous post that I am currently training to run a half marathon in November. I’m at the end of week six of the 19 week training program, which apparently was put together by Jeff Galloway. I have no idea who Jeff Galloway is, but apparently he knows what he’s doing.

So week 6 involves two 30 minute runs and a 6.5 mile long run. This week was slightly augmented due to a 5k road race supporting a local catholic school. Not a huge turnout, but a fun race, and I finished well… For me. The overall winner was a kid who did the race in 13 minutes or something ridiculous like that. Anyway, it was a nice day and a nice race, and ended up adding a run to my week. I gave myself a couple days off and today I tackled the 6.5.

In the past, I’ve resisted doing long runs by myself. I have no reason for this other than that I get bored, and you know, misery loves company.Unfortunately, my buddy wasnt available today, so I was on my own. I decided to set my pace for 11:00/mile, just to keep it slow and easy. I’m not a super fast runner anyway, but I didn’t want to burn out early, so I kept it slow.

Something I love about where we live is that I can walk out my front door and run. The last place we lived was on a huge hill surrounded by huge hills and didn’t lend itself a relaxing run. So, off I went. Rest assured, I won’t bore the reader with the mundane details of a 6.5 mile run.

Today’s run was significant for two reasons. First, it signified the halfway mark, in terms of distance, in my training problem. The long runs get longer from here, but today was exactly half way to the half marathon. 13.1 doesn’t seem all that far away. Secondly, my pace ended up being faster than I was planning and also faster than I’ve run longer distances in the past. My average today was 10:47/mile which is about :30 faster than the 6.2 I did a couple weeks ago, and a minute faster than the seven miler a couple years ago. It doesn’t sound like much to the established runner, but I was pleased with it.

So I’m halfway to 13.1. Next weeks program has a couple 30 minute runs and a 4 mile long run. It will be a nice break until the 8 mile run that’s lurking the following week. It should be fun. But for now, I have to go to work.