Week 7 Complete! {Half Marathon Training}

We are in the home stretch.  Well, ok maybe we’re rounding 2nd base heading to 3rd, but I feel like we’re so close!  Just over a month left until our race.  Ok, typing that just gave me major anxiety and made my heart flutter a bit.  Scary.

Ok, onto the recap.

I was really looking forward to last week.  Week 6 had gone so poorly I felt like I needed to redeem myself.  And I really did.

Huebie was on travel (I feel like a broken record here) so I was a lone ranger once again.  Tuesday I kicked 3 mile butt.  About a 8:45 pace.

Wednesday I knocked out 5 miles and actually had a pretty good time at 9:30 pace.  I may look happy, but I actually felt like this:

My new shoes were bothering me so it was a tough last 3 miles.  Great weather though!

This was my fuel for the run:

Like I said on Instagram, it’s no DC (Diet Coke for you non-DC drinkers) but it will do in a pinch.

Thursday I did 3 more miles in the early afternoon.  I actually had to go into work that day so our nanny was there.  I took advantage of that and got out to get the run in quickly.  Another 9:30 average pace (sorry I forgot to take a pic that day), but my foot was still bothering me in my new shoes.

Rest Friday, and then our long run Saturday.  My grandma was so kind to come over and watch Little A for us.  Like I’ve said before, there’s no way she would last longer than 4 or 5 miles, and we really don’t want to push her that far, so it’s great to have our family’s support and help watching her.

We found a new route that was a trail loop that we’ve never done before.  I had no idea how long it was but I assumed around 6 miles or so.  I figured we’d run the loop once, then run another mile and a half and turn around and run back to complete our 9 miles.

I was so wrong.  First, the course was really, REALLY hilly.  And we went the wrong way.  So we ended up going up most of the hills instead of down.  Boo to that.
Second, it was a trail, which wasn’t so bad when it was nice and wide and mostly dirt/a little rock.  It was when the path got really narrow, rutted and rocky that I wanted to die.  I had to really focus to make sure I placed my feet right as not to fall and twist my ankle or something.  By the time we got to around mile 5 I thought we’d gone way further and couldn’t believe we still had 4 more miles to go.

When I would figure out where we were I kept thinking, “Oh yeah, we’re almost to that other street, and then we’re about a mile or so from our starting point.”  Oh was I wrong.  The trail kept winding in and out of the woods and turning here and there.  When we finally got out to the road that I thought we were so close to, we were at mile 7. 

The whole loop ended up being almost exactly 9 miles, which was great (no backtracking), except for the whole hill and rocky trail part.  Oh and pretty much feeling like I was going to die half the time.  Ugh.  I told Huebie that we need to go back to our other trail that I like much better this weekend.  In the end we ended up finishing around 11:30 or so, including like 5 stops and multiple walks for me to not die in the middle of the trail, so not terrible.  My sweet husband kept turning around and running back to run with me.  He’s such a trooper. 

Oh and about my new kicks.  Well, I wore them twice last week (one 3 mile and one 5 mile run) and both times by left foot started to go a little numb.  I didn’t wear them on Saturday but I did wear my new insoles that are meant for high arches.  Unfortunately they hit me in the wrong spot of my arch (more toward my heel and not in the middle of my arch) so my feet were hurtin’ after about mile 4.  I’m going to give the shoes one more try this week and if my foot keeps going numb I’m taking them back. 90 days to try them out.  Thanks Road Runner Sports!

We have 10 miles this weekend, then a 10k the following weekend.  Still trying to decide which 10k to sign us up for (I know, I’m procrastinating).  The one I really want to do starts at like 7:00 in the morning and is about an hour from our house!  So we’ll see if we do that one or the one that starts at 9:30 (but is still like an hour away).

What is your running fuel? 

Diet Coke or Diet Pepsi?