I really should have waited to post again so I’d have more to show you guys, but I’m brimming with excitement. I’ve caught the running bug.

Why is it that we catch the running bug after a race-when we are physically incapable of running? I’m feeling way better now, but I am SORE. I was shuffling around like an old lady all morning. My hips-ouchhh. I guess this is what I get for racing way faster than my training runs…oops. 

To further my old lady tendencies, I drank my breakfast through a straw….in the form of a chocolate green protein smoothie. And now the exciting news-what I spent my morning doing! GUESS WHAT? I’m now going to write a fitness blog for my hometown’s local online newspaper! I am so incredibly excited for this opportunity! I’ll share the links with you guys, and of course any fun workouts 🙂

However, I had so much trouble with the site today. I created the blog-it’s called Fitness 101. But man oh man did it make me miss WordPress. The site was not cooperating with me AT ALL. So I have my post sitting here on my computer, with no way to actually post it….

But still, I am extremely excited for this. I saw the ad for the position, and didn’t really think I’d actually get this opportunity. But hey, sometimes you just have to take a chance, right? I can’t wait to actually get some posts up! I’m thinking my next one will be First Half Training 101. 

After some frustration, I broke for lunch. English muffin pizzas- pizza sauce (which for some crazy reason we had), spinach, and mozzarella on a whole wheat English muffin. As you can probably tell, all we had was string cheese. 

Plus some celery and orange fleshed melon on the side. No, that is not cantaloupe; it’s better! I’m not exactly sure what kind of melon it was, but I think it was a cross between a cantaloupe and a honeydew. SO delicious-it was sweeter than plain old cantaloupe!

After lunch I started plotting planning. My next race is the Nike Women’s Marathon (the half) in October. My goal is to break 2:10. This race is known for being hilly, so I looked up as many reviews of the race as possible. Apparently it’s really poorly run, and the race etiquette is awful. A ton of people walk it, and don’t really move for runners. Even worse, a ton of people commented saying that walkers starting in the wrong race corals, like 9:00 pace. Given all that, it may be a frustrating race for me to try and PR, just because of all the traffic. I’m still going to train for it though!

I’m planning on doing training a little differently. After my race, I know I can run faster than I trained for. Now, to break 2:10, I think my goal is to be to maintain a 9:30 pace on my Garmin-for almost the entire run my Garmin read below 10:00 but I stopped a few seconds to stretch here or there, and walked through water and to take my goo. Plus, hills will definitely slow me down. If I stay below or at 9:30 (which now I really think I can do), I should break 2:10, taking into account the above factors.

Since I now have a half under my belt, I’m going to do training a little differently. I’m going to do speed runs, instead of just trying to get the mileage in. What does that mean? I’m going to mix in some intervals, some repeats, and some tempo runs. All my training will target a 9:30 pace. 

But then I started thinking towards the future and getting even more race happy. I decided to make a Race page on the blog-check it out! It has all the races I’ve run, including PRs. Although I’ve only run each distance once, so everything is a PR….

So looking even farther into the future-after Nike, I think I’m going to take a break from halfs. I think maybe a late spring/early summer would be a good time for another one. The Giant Race was an awesome race, and might be a good one to try and PR on a half, but Im seriously considering doing the 10k….and racing to win. First place in my age group (for next year) was 47 minutes. If I ran an 8 minute pace, I’d place. And I think with training that’s definitely doable. 

As for the slightly more near term: post-Nike I’m going to train to PR a 5k at the Santa Run. I’ve been dying to do a Turkey Trot, but I’m planning on doing the 10k for that (and probably not trying a PR). I actually looked up my Santa Run time from last year….and it’s a minute faster than I thought it was. I had an 8:01 pace, which means to PR I’d have to break 8 minutes. I do think that’s doable but it’ll take some work. 

Here’s to some new PRs this fall!

How do you train for races? What’s your favorite distance? Do you like nerding out about running too? (I’m looking at you Beth.)