My Training Week: Half Marathon Training

Race week - although I kept having to remind myself I was actually running a Half Marathon on Sunday! Rightly or wrongly the distance felt achievable and therefore not something which was consuming my thoughts (unlike marathon race week!)

MONDAY: following a weekend away it felt good to get out on the streets! I ran 8k averaging sub 5 minutes per kilometre without it feeling like too much of an effort. Body Pump after.

TUESDAY: Body Attack class

WEDNESDAY: for the second week in a row I began running and within minutes my Garmin watch was telling me it had no battery - great! I managed to keep it alive by doing small sections of the 10k distance and saving the individual workouts. This did make me question why I was so preoccupied with my Gramin. I knew the route I was running was 10km as I had ran in hundreds of times before, so GPRS didn't really matter; this was also supposed to be taper week so my pace was not essential in the grand scheme of things either. Even when I arrived at the gym for Body Pump, with my watch now totally dead, I was annoyed I couldn't review my splits, something which has become so habitual to me at the end of each run I do. I definitely need to become less reliant on my Garmin!

THURSDAY: my last run before the Half Marathon. 8km with 6 x 30 second sprints. The treadmill was definitely required in order for me to do this, and I feel I am slightly rebuilding my relationship with the machine. It serves a purpose for these type of workouts - but I definitely still cannot imagine doing long runs on there like I used to do many months ago!

FRIDAY: the first of two rest days before Sunday. The day was spent travelling to Liverpool and exploring the city. I am still wearing my pedometer as part of the walking challenge my work is involved with, and even without doing any form of exercise I managed to rack up an impressive 16000 odd steps - so not much of a rest after all!

SATURDAY: A 'proper' rest day today in prep for Sunday.

SUNDAY: Half Marathon time. Despite having run a few unofficial half marathons during marathon training, this was my first official race. The Liverpool Rock n' Roll Half Marathon proved to be a wonderfully organised event and a thoroughly enjoyable route through Liverpool. With no previous time to beat I was aiming to be in the 1hr 45min (dream outcome) to 1hr 55min (top limit) time bracket. My official time... 1hr 49mins 1 second - which I was very happy with, and which is now a great benchmark to work towards beating in the (inevitable) half marathons to come!