Jazz Half Marathon training week #1

Holy crap where did the summer go!!?? I've been lounging and hitting the pool and drinking daiquiris in the bag (Have you SEEN these things??? They are AWE-SOME!) and letting summer just cruise on by, knowing that fall half marathon training was creeping up fast. Now I was running...but not "RUNNING".  I've mainly just been doing some maintenance stuff (read: sitting on my butt or schlogging through a run). I woke up on Sunday and thought I'd better check on a training plan for the upcoming Jazz Half Marathon. I realized then that it's 13 weeks away! 13 WEEKS PEOPLE!! That's not much time!! ACK!

This is the first half marathon, post-pregnancy, that I plan to RUN - not fun-run - I mean, really balls-out train for and run. I have set a pretty lofty time goal for myself. Not so lofty for my pre-Baby Z-self, but lofty for my fat-butt-out-of-shape-still-have-some-baby-weight-left self. I'm both excited and nervous about this race. I have all of the self-doubt issues creeping into my head, but I'm going in with the attitude of try your hardest and enjoy the outcome (but I really want to kick-ass).

I plugged my goal time and training preferences into the nifty Runner's World Smart Coach app. It's a little expensive for an app, but has some nice feature and chugs out a pretty nice training plan. This is what the little running dictator is telling me I need to get done this week:

Monday: 4 miles easy
Tuesday: Rest or X-train
Wednesday: 5 mile tempo (1 mile w/u, 3 miles tempo, 1 mile c/d)
Thursday: 4 miles easy
Friday: Rest or X-train
Saturday: 8 miles long run (slow and easy pace)
Sunday: Rest or X-train

Total mileage: 23 miles

I got Monday's and Wednesday's runs done. And I actually ran 6 today instead of the required 5. Yup. I'm an overachiever. But no-one seemed to inform Mother Nature that ultra high humidity is NOT preferred when Jen is training for a half marathon. These runs KICKED MY BUTT! I ran 6 last week with somewhat ease when we had a cool spell. Well, I was barely able to do 4 easy this week. Blergh. Now, I did it and I know some of what went wrong was due to fueling issues and only 5 hours of sleep (thank YOU Baby Z). Gawd, I sure hope this gets easier though. COME ON FALL WEATHER!!!!

In other news I forgot my Garmin on my 6 miler today. Not a total tragedy since I knew the route and knew where the 3 mile turnaround was, but I'm a data nerd and like to see pace, avg. pace, calories burned (so I know how many cupcakes I can eat), etc...blah, blah, and so on and so forth. It then hit me, "Hey - you have one of those smart phone thingies! There's got to be a free (emphasis on free) app that will do all of that!" Sure enough, one quick search later I found the MapMyRun app and downloaded it. And I'll be damned if that thing wasn't accurate! I DID have to turn on my GPS on my phone which I do NOT like to do (in case the Russians want to pinpoint my location and launch a missile up my rear) but it was a nice little app! All kinds of data read outs to take my mind of the life-sucking humidity. Ahhh...technology...how I love thee.

Today I Love: O.N.E Coconut Water - great post long(ish) run fuel.