I have been running regularly for about a year now, with a little break last December when I pulled a muscle. However, my running was really really boring. I would run 3 miles 4 times a week at the same pace, and that was about it. Sometimes I creeped up to 4 for a "long run."
Training for the half marathon has given me a lot of goals to meet and a reason to push myself to actually do long runs. I'm having a lot of fun with it, but honestly running over 6 miles/over an hour is a little tedious, so not sure I would do it again (especially when those hour + runs are now part of the week day training). My dad is coming to Madison to run the half as well, which means we get to share our training stories and also encourage each other.
Part of the training schedule was to run a 10k race this weekend or run 8 miles. A 10k is only 6.2 miles so obviously I picked that one! I found the Ghoulish Gallup in Fitchburg, WI and thought it would be nice not to run in Madison for once.
For my first 10k, the race went pretty well. I looked at the times from last year and my goal was to finish in the top ten/under 55 minutes, which I was able to do with a 53:43 finish. I really liked the distance, although around that 5k mark I was wondering why I had to run another 5k.
My friend Becky was able to win, although she had to run a little harder than she wanted to because there was some competition in the form of a woman wearing a tank top. You know it is serious when someone is wearing a tank top in 40 degree weather. I was 2nd in my age group, so no award for me.
The real reason for doing the 10k is to predict how you'll finish in the half marathon. My goal is to finish in under 2 hours and its going to be close! Let's all just hope it doesn't snow.
