Halfway to a Half Marathon!
Every Sunday, I do my weekly “long run” in preparation for my half-marathon this coming March. Yesterday, I completed a big milestone in finishing over seven miles [7.2 to be exact]—more than halfway to my goal distance of 13.1! It was also my first run that took longer than an hour, clocking in at 1:05:32, which sounds so long, but shockingly didn’t feel that bad when I was doing it. Additionally, it was my coldest run yet—while the temperature read fifteen degrees, it apparently felt like five [according to the weather app]. My next investment will definitely be a fleece headband to keep my ears warm! Anyway, in celebration of running more than half the distance of a half-marathon, I wanted to talk a little bit more about what my training looks like and how I ended up structuring it as such.
When I first decided to start training for a half marathon right at the end of last semester, I spent a ton of time researching training methods and schedules online—probably even more than I normally would have, since it doubled as a great excuse to procrastinate studying for finals! While there are many [really, so many] training guides online, some fit my schedule and experience better than others. As a truly novice runner without a particular time goal for my race – guys, I just want to finish! – I was looking for a flexible plan without too many runs based on pace. The one that I found here, Hal Higdon’s plan, fit that bill.
Essentially, it consists of two or three shorter runs per week in addition to the weekly long run that I’ve talked about before. While I definitely don’t stick precisely to the days of the week on which Hal prescribes certain runs or cross training, I do complete my long runs on Sundays, and I try to avoid running two days in a row—although obviously sometimes that’s necessary in order to do four runs each week. For me, one of the best parts about this structure is that the long run makes the short runs feel so much shorter! While I would have considered four miles a lengthy distance at the beginning of my training, it feels like nothing when I know I’m planning to do a seven mile run a few days later. Repeating shorter distances is also fun because, if you wear some sort of tracking or timing device me [if you know me, you know I’m addicted to my Fitbit], you can so easily see your improvement and notice how much faster you’re getting.
Determining running speed and optimal pacing is honestly kind of an enigma to me—which is why I chose a plan without paced runs in the first place. On the treadmill, running faster than six miles per hour, or ten minutes per mile, feels impossible, especially when I’ve set the machine to 1% grade. I do this because I read on the internet [yeah, I know, very reliable source] that to make treadmill runs count, you should set the grade between one and two percent in order to mimic the stress of running on the road. When I’m running on the actual road, however, I always end up going faster than ten minutes per miles, usually clocking closer to nine minute miles. To add to this confusion, my Fitbit is a very unreliable tracker of distance, and thus of pace.
This is sort of a fun story: I had always trusted my Fitbit to accurately tell me how far I had run, because why not? But, when I started running, I never ran with my phone since it was awkward and cumbersome to carry before I got my phone-holding armband, so my Fitbit had no connection to the GPS and thus tracked my distance exclusively based on its step counter. I didn’t think to question its measurements until it got a little colder and I began doing some runs on the treadmill. After a 5K run, my Fitbit told me I had only covered 2.7 miles. At first I thought maybe the treadmill wasn’t as accurate as I had imagined, but the disparity piqued my interest and so I decided to use an online mapping tool to measure the distance of my next outdoor run before I did it. Surprisingly, I discovered that my Fitbit had been consistently measuring over half a mile off from the actual distances I was covering. Where I thought I had been running around two and a half miles, I was actually running over three. Realizing that I could do more than I had thought ended up being the first step towards deciding to train for a half marathon! Thanks, Fitbit, for aiding me in this psychological trick!
While I don’t trust my Fitbit anymore to tell me the distance of my run, I do trust its ability to run a simple timer during my workout, so I just use an online mapping tool to determine the distance and then divide my Fitbit’s time by that distance in order to get my pace. Not that it really matters—like I’ve said before, I don’t have a time goal besides completion in this race, although I expect it to take me a bit over two hours. But hey, I’ve now run for over one hour, so even that seems more approachable!
In other news, I have [finally] actually signed up for the half marathon that I’ve now been talking about nonstop for about a month. After some extensive research [notably also mostly during finals], I picked the Anthem Half Marathon, the counterpart of the Shamrock Full Marathon, on St. Patrick’s Day in Virginia Beach. It should be a great course for a first-timer, since it’s super flat—only twenty feet of elevation change throughout the whole course! For reference, on my seven mile run yesterday, my Fitbit tracked 280 feet of elevation. I’m hoping that since I’ve done some hill training, the flatter run will be easier and faster.
Officially completing the sign-up for the race feels so good! I had been putting it off since it’s sort of expensive at $100, and I wasn’t totally sure I would ever actually be able to run that far. Now that I’ve gotten halfway distance-wise though, it feels much closer, and I’m ready to commit fully [see: financially] to achieving 13.1 miles! In the form to sign-up, I got to choose custom text for my number bib, so that will say “Quinn Runs.” Look out for me in Virginia Beach this March! I’ll tell you guys my number once I get it too.
It’s also awesome because I still have about two months until the race, so I have lots of time to train the last half. Most plans for beginners recommend only training up to ten or eleven miles and then letting adrenaline cover the last couple so that you still have the drive of reaching a new distance on the day of your race. With eight weeks left and just three to four more miles to add to my long runs, I feel like I’m in a pretty good spot. I’m glad that I’ll be able to get extra comfortable with these longer distances before the big day.
Have any of you ever raced a half marathon before? What were your favorite training strategies? How far did you run before the race? Feel free to use the comment section below to chime in—I love hearing from you all!
