I can’t believe it’s almost time to run the Crawlin’ Crab Shell Yeah Challenge!!  It really snuck up on me fast.  While I’ve continued running and participated in several races, I haven’t completed a half marathon since March!  This will be my 14^th (I believe) half marathon and yet I’m almost as nervous and intimidated as I was for my first.  Probably because this is the longest I’ve gone without running a half marathon since I ran my first one.  This past week was pretty productive and I only missed one of my “planned” training runs (a 3 miler).  Here’s how the week went:

Monday – rest day

Tuesday – Planned to run 5, but decided to call it quits at 4 miles.  Sam and I met at the park and ran half mile circle repeats around the park.  One side has an incline and is a little tough, but we made it through.  It was nice running with Sam again and really made the miles fly by.  We averaged 10:23 per mile.

Wednesday – Speed session!  Sam and I headed to the track and we ran 10x400m sprints, with a 400m walk break in between.  We really pushed the pace so it was difficult, but nice knowing a walk break was just on the horizon.  I only recorded the run portion, but our average pace was 8:06.  We forgot to take a run selfie so we had to make our own via Snapchat!

Thursday – 3 miles.  Steven ran this with me.  It was a beautiful night for a run so he decided to join me, even though my pace is pretty slow for him.  It was nice to chat with him.  I took a quick walk break at 1.5 miles though.  I just wasn’t feeling very strong.  We averaged a 9:41 pace though; not bad!

Friday – rest day

Saturday – I was supposed to run 3 miles at a fast pace, but the day got away from me and I never got a chance to squeeze it in.  Sometimes spectating a swim meet and a trip to the St. Mary’s County Fair take priority.  Oops.

Sunday – Last long run before the big race next weekend!  I had 11 miles on the schedule and I was pretty nervous about it!  Sam and I were able to work out our schedules so that she could join me for part of it!  I was up bright and early (6:15), but I just couldn’t drag myself out of my nice warm bed (the house was a little chilly for a change) so I got started later than originally planned.  After stalling for quite some time and then finally eating some oatmeal and getting myself ready, I was finally ready to go a little after 8:00.  Sam wasn’t quite ready, but since I had further to run today, I decided to get a head start and told her to call me when she was on her way and I would make my way back to the starting point to meet her.  I knew I should stay within a mile or so of the start so that I didn’t leave her waiting too long.  Sam had decided to run the 6 mile loop portion with me.  She actually called me within a few minutes of my start so I made a small loop which was about 1.4 miles total when I met up with her at her car.  She was ready to go so I didn’t even have to slow down.  It couldn’t have worked out any better!  I was so glad to get almost a mile and a half in before our run together.  Knowing I only had to run 3.5 solo miles after our 6 miles together sounded much better than having to run 5 solo miles.  The 6 miles with Sam was of course my favorite part of the entire run.  I actually felt much better than I expected.  We walked at mile 4 for a bit.  I opened up a GU at this point and slowly ate it over the next 6 miles (still not really feeling the GU’s…I packed a kind bar, but figured it would be too hard to eat while running).  After our walk break, we picked the pace back up and continued to chat the miles away.  When we made it back in front of the drill hall, I decided not to turn into the parking lot  with her because I was worried I would stop with her and not want to finish my last 3.5 miles.  So we said goodbye and I continued on while she turned off.  I continued running until my planned walk break at mile 8.  I walked for a minute or 2 and then pushed myself to finish off the run.  The last mile was particularly hard.  I had actually given myself permission to take one last walk break at mile 10, but I decided against it and pushed through!  I was so happy to get to mile 11!  I finished with an average pace of 10:06.  I am hoping to be able to sustain near a 10 minute mile next weekend at the half marathon.  We shall see!

I felt much better than I expected both during and after the run.  I soaked in an Epsom salt bath afterwards and my legs are feeling pretty good today.  I have a few more training runs to get through this week, but I will slowly be tapering off heading into the weekend.  Hopefully my next update will be an exciting race recap!  I hope everyone has a good week!