7. One Week Until Half-marathon! (T-7)

As I mentioned earlier, I will probably be updating this every couple of days now rather than every single. I would like to mention a big THANK-YOU to those who have both clicked on some ads and decided to follow me! Very unexpected and surprisingly delightful at the same time.

This past week I had been feeling under the weather and not sleeping well due to a chronic cough. I wasn't able to sleep because I would go into these coughing fits. In addition the weather has not been the greatest although I do belong to Planet Fitness so weather should never be an excuse. At this point I have convinced myself I would rather be under-trained and 'just do it' than to be over-trained and burnt out.

Today it is cold and rainy. I haven't ran yet, and I am not sure that I will. It should be my last day for a long  run, and I just don't think this half matters enough to me that I want to go out and endure the cold, rainy, and VERY WINDY weather. Maybe I should take this half more seriously, but my goal is just to finish, and I am confident that I will. Maybe I should come up with a list of 'reasons TO run' for when I am unmotivated but truly need to train (like for when I start my real marathon training May 16th!).

6. *Cough* (T-11 days)

Nothing terribly exciting to post about today. I was up coughing all night, so I didn't get up early this morning to run. Wednesdays I spend my day volunteering at our local center for abused kids. It is an awesome experience but also exhausting. I am done with my 4 hour shift of work at 10am tomorrow, so hopefully I will be feeling better and able to go for a nice run tomorrow and that the weather will be decent.

5. Clothing (1/2 Marathon T-12 Days)

The half-marathon is less than 2 weeks away, so my cousin and I have been discussing what kind of clothes we are planning to wear. Typically both of us run in a t-shirt or tank top and shorts or capris. Because our race is 13.1 miles, we ultimately want to be as comfortable as possible.

There are a few problems any fitness enthusiast can tell you about - some  clothes really are better than others. For example, finding the right shorts is almost a job in itself. Some shorts ride up to give you a wedgie, and some have the side effect of chafing after a few miles. Unfortunately, this type of information is not something a store associate can provide you with. It's usually not something you can test out in a store setting either, so unless you are good about returning items (I'm not), one wants to find the best item the first time around.

The weather average for May 2nd is a low of 40, high of 65. We have been having an unseasonably warm spring so far, and the high is already slated to be 70 with a low of 45. I am a big fan of running my long runs in 45-50 degree temperatures, so it is likely to be much warmer than I prefer. We have decided to try this tank top from Under Armour. One of my concerns is that Under Armour material (82% nylon, 18% elastane) tend to ride up when I run. I do not know if this is a sizing problem on my part, or a problem typical for this item.

Two of my friends have also highly recommended purchasing shorts with built in underwear. They said both of previously mentioned problems are not an issue. I have not checked these out yet, but I am planning to look into them. Otherwise I think spandex shorts are a safe bet, so I will probably stick with those.

I am still not sure whether I am going to try and get new shoes and break in before the race or not, but I still have a day or two to decide. Luckily my tax refund is still on its way and not already spent!

4. Walking (1/2 Marathon T-13 days)

Yesterday I decided to take a 15 minute jog since I was still tired from the 9 miles I ran the previous day and really did not want to go out at all. After only 5 minutes, I was still not wanting to run and making tons of excuses to try and convince myself to quit (it's too hot... you ran so much yesterday... nobody will know, it's all just for you anyways). I continued to miserably jog for another 3 minutes until I was 2 blocks way from the lake I love to run by, and realized it was time for me to just stop and walk.

Walking. For some reason, I have it in my head that walking is inferior to running even though I know this is not true. Rather than just go home, I decided I would walk around the park at the lake and then decide whether or not I was going to walk or run home. After a refreshing brisk walk around the water, I decided I would jog home because then I would be done quicker. Had I just given up and gone home immediately, I would have had much less of a work-out, and I wouldn't have felt good about the work-out at all.

Walking uses muscles differently than jogging, so it is not quite the same. When you are tired though, it is a smart move to mix it in with your run when you feel the need. There are so many benefits to walking. It is foolish to push your body harder than it needs when you are not racing, and even I need to regularly remind myself of this. Safety first!

3. Purpose and Affiliates

Well already I am learning some new things about blogging, awesome! Please bare with me while I figure everything out. Typically I like to get a bunch of information on something before I go ahead and try it, but I decided to jump right into this and learn as I go.

Purpose
The purpose of this blog is for me to write about my experience in training for running a marathon. My official start date is May 16th, 2010. I found out that I can even make some money if I set up the blog to include affiliates (that means I have ads on the page). What really convinced me to start this blog though is that I found out I could easily get my blog published into a book if I wanted. The fact that I can write a book about training for a marathon and have it to look back upon for years is a huge motivator for me, in addition to knowing people are following my journey and probably don't want to see me fail.

Affiliates
There are two ways to support my efforts in writing this blog. Number 1, I welcome comments from everyone. I will probably delete comments if they are just spam, but otherwise they are unmoderated. Any feedback provides information of some sort. Number 2, if you click on an affiliate link on the day I post something, I get 5 cents. I do not expect you to do this, but I will be including links within my posts relating to items or things I have tried and truly like. Any other ads that I do not directly reference will still generate pennies for me, but I do not necessarily endorse them. As mentioned above, clicking on the ads is just another way to support my endeavors and is by no means the sole purpose of this blog.

Well, I wasn't meaning to post more than every couple of days or so, but this first week there will be a few more than normal. The FTC also requires me to let everyone know I am using affiliates, which is why I am posting again so soon - and is also one of the things I learned today. Stay tuned tomorrow for when I explain what else I learned today while I was out for my run.

2. Beating Boredom on the Run (1/2 Marathon T-14 days)

Something I hear a lot and have experienced myself is that running is so boring. I agree that at times it can seem to go on and on. Here are some things I have found keep me occupied on my runs.

#1 Relaxed Thinking Time. I use running time to try and find solutions to things. Sometimes I figure out what the most important thing I need to do on that day are and come up with a plan of action to make sure it gets done. Sometimes I think about different people and what's going on with them. Sometimes I just enjoy the music I am listening to. It all depends on my mood for the day.

#2 Set an Amount of Time to Run (or Destination). If I go out running and do not have either a time or destination decided ahead of time, I cannot motivate myself to run for very long. For some reason, I also struggle when I set only a destination. I run best when I set a certain time for myself. On days when I don't want to go out for a run at all, I might only say 15 or 20 minutes. If I find myself more motivated when I am out running, I can always add more time. If I am still not feeling it, I simply finish my run and am done for the day with only 15 minutes taken out of my day for it. This is especially helpful for long runs where I might set a goal of an hour run because I do a much better job of not starting out too fast and run at a more relaxed pace. I never set a goal of more than an hour - I consider any time over an hour as "bonus" time and feel great when I can get this time in.

#3 Music. Sometimes I just want to get my mind off of everything and these are the runs where I put on my favorite music and simply lose track of time to it. I also put on my favorite 'motivational' song that pumps me up when I am close to home. Then I finish all of my runs strong and feel good about being done. I do this strong finish on 80% of my runs.

Those are my top 3 ways to beat boredom while running. I find that most of running is a mind game. Sometimes when I am tired and not that close to home, I make up little games to help take the focus off being tired. One game I play is changing my speed every 5 steps: very slow, regular, slightly stronger regular, repeat. Depending on how tired I am, I can change the amount of steps for each set of 5, but the purpose is really just to re-focus my mind off of being tired and eventually make it home.

If you have any of your own tips to leave, I'd be happy to hear them. Seeing as this is a new blog, I do not anticipate much of a response, but any suggestions are always welcome!

1. Intentions

Alright, my name is Lyndsey, and my sister had the great idea to share my marathon experiences through blogging. As is the case with our entire lives, she suggests something that will probably leave me eating my words or play-doh ("if we can make it out of things from the food pantry of course we can eat it"), and I do it anyways. However, I think by setting up the blog I have made the second step towards commitment.

What then, is the first step? On May 2nd I will be running my first half-marathon with two of my cousins. Our goal is simply to finish, and I been training about twice a week - one short run, one long run. This is definitely not a good training setup and do not recommend anyone try it if they are looking for a good time.

Starting May 16th I will begin training for a full marathon which will take place on September 19th. I will be following a real training plan (viewable on Hal Higdon's website, see Novice 1 http://www.halhigdon.com/marathon/Mar00novice.htm ), and the goal is for me to actually follow it.

I know I can more or less 'push' my way through a half-marathon, however, the thought of a full marathon scares the crap out of me. Here I am then, starting my 'pre-marathon' portion of the blog. Get ready for a course in 'marathon running', and please feel free to join me on this adventure!