Chapter 2 page 51 - HMTU 2

I'm in trouble - - - is it too soon to "quit" the pursuit for a half-marathon????? I'm thinking it is too soon, but I'm also thinking about the unimaginable pressure that will be coming my way in the next few weeks.

I had planned ahead and packed my workout clothes so that after my event today, I could run on the treadmill. My training schedule said to run/walk 7 miles today (ha! who are they kidding, but I thought, well - maybe it's possible while watching television, having the fan on high, and taking it at completely my own pace. Even if I couldn't do 7 miles, I had thought that 6 miles might actually be possible. WELL - heck no, no way, not even close. I started off with a 10 minute walk (I mean if you're going for 6 miles, you should take a nice long warm up). I then went to 2:2 with the jogs being at 4.5 mph (which in and of itself is truly pathetic - but I was going for distance not speed today - or so I told myself - honestly, it was the fastest I could go and still do my "stride THANG"). After 3 rounds of 2:2 I just couldn't do any more. So today - I jogged a mere 6 minutes and walked 32 minutes and I was totally done!!!!! It took 40 minutes to perform 2 miles - that just won't cut it. Good news is that I'm not sore whatsoever (seriously, is that worth mentioning - I would hope I'm not sore with a mere 2 miles in 40 minutes - OHHHH!)

What do I do??? My training partner will be okay with this for a little while, but soon she'll want and need to go so much further and faster. I'm just not sure I can hang. I'm thinking about talking to her on Tuesday about maybe either training to jog the entire 10K which was my original goal or 2:2 the 10 mile race which was my other training partner's idea. I just think 13.1 miles may be out of my reach in 4 months from now.

I'm not giving up completely on the idea for now, but this week's training certainly wasn't on par for a half-marathon training schedule. Next week we'll have to go further than I did today or that we did on Thursday - if I can't do it today, how will I be able to do it on Tuesday? Or next Thursday? Holy cow kids - WHAT HAVE I GOTTEN MYSELF INTO????

If you see me dying on the greenway - please say hi, give me a ride to my car, or call 911 (whichever seems most appropriate) SMILE!