Am I Half Crazy?

I may be considering signing up for my first half marathon.  I may be a little jealous that my friend Susan already has 2 medals for finishing two of them (Roots and Blues last fall and Rock the Parkway this past spring).  She may have been urging me to sign up for the St. Louis Rock and Roll Half in October to me for a month or two.  It is just 12 weeks away so I will soon need to "shit or get off the pot" as they say.  Decisions!  Decisions! 

I read in Runner's World the other day that one way to get more motivated is to sign up for a new race distance therefore giving you an automatic PR.  I like the way whoever wrote that thinks!  And I'm not above being a bit of a bling whore.  I did really like my medal from the Show Me State Games last weekend, even if I basically had to show up and finish to get it.

So on a bit of a lark last night, I looked up a novice half marathon training plan from Hal Higdon online.  It looked relatively doable.  The biggest issue will be running more consistently.  That once or twice a week just won't cut it.  I need to focus on the fact that not all runs need to be fast (which is good since nothing I ever run could be considered "fast") and that not all runs need to be long (which lately I seem to do ok in getting in one long run, but very few shorter ones - sometimes it is easier to set aside one long chunk of time).

Since the forecast was for "just a hair off the surface of the sun" hot today, I woke up early and did a sunrise run of 3.1 miles at a ridiculously slow 39 minutes (though in my defense, I did the big Wavco hill in the 2nd mile).  Getting out of bed before 6 AM is not my idea of a good time, but it fit in my day better and avoided the worst of the heat (though the humidity was already out in full force).  Now let's see if I can do it again tomorrow and Thursday and maybe run 4 miles on Saturday before I pull the trigger on paying the big bucks to run a race with 2999 other half crazy folks.

 

About one mile in standing on Moreau River bridge - the oranges and pinks that were so
pretty were not sufficiently captured by the cell phone selfie camera