Half Marathon Training

I mentioned a few weeks ago that I'm training for a half marathon. The race is the Raleigh Rocks Half-Marathon and it's March 27, 2010. I registered for it last week, so it's now for real (although I started training for it back in December).

My dad also registered for the race last week. Unfortunately, it's going cost him $354.95 to run it (whereas, it only costs me $54.95).

It's more expensive to run it if you're old.

HAHA. Just kidding. My dad signed up for the race and then realized that the date of the race was the same date that he and my mom were scheduled to fly back from Florida where they are going to the Braves' spring training. So, they changed the dates of their trip, but because they were using frequent flyer miles it costs $150/ticket to change the flights.

If that's not dedication to running, I don't know what is!!!! :-)

We're very excited about the race and we've been lucky enough to do two of our long runs at the same time because I've been down here visiting.

Over Christmas, our training run was 6.5 miles, so we decided to run from Cape Carteret to Swansboro and then back to Cape Carteret (http://bit.ly/8x4blz). This was a crazy day to run. It was 25° with an 8° wind chill! Some of the wind gusts were so insane that I thought I was going to blow away! We both did pretty well despite the conditions. I averaged 11:17 splits and dad averaged 9:38.

Yesterday, our training run was 8 miles. (The general gist is long runs every other weekend, increasing by 1-1.5 miles each time.) So we decided to run from Cape Carteret over through Emerald Isle and then back to Cape Carteret (http://bit.ly/61Hq67). I averaged 10:37 splits and dad averaged 9:31. Not too shabby!

Yesterday's run was pretty much amazing. The weather was PERFECT! It was about 63° with little-to-no wind and some cloud cover. It was absolutely beautiful running the huge bridge across Bogue Sound and there's a really nice greenway through Emerald Isle. Both of us felt fantastic. I, legitimately, could have fun 10 miles yesterday. Everything just felt super smooth and excellent.

The next long run will be 9.5 miles on January 30.

I am even more excited for the half-marathon now. Completely inspired. It's so much fun to set a goal and work toward it.

If everything goes well with the half then I think we're looking at the Disney World Marathon in January 2011 (me, dad, and my friends Adam and Maggie).