Or maybe it should be "I" survived, as the matter of survival was more questionable for me than it was for Zach. He considered the half marathon on Sunday a training run, while I put it all on the table as possibly the furthest and fastest I will ever run.
Our goal was to finish in under two hours, and the sub-goal was to be done with seven miles by the time we'd been running for an hour. We met the sub-goal, which made the ultimate goal more attainable. Zach finished 13.3 miles in 1 hour and 51 minutes (according to his Nike Plus app), while I finished in 1 hour 53 minutes. I was extremely happy with my run.
I've mentioned that we had an unorthodox training plan for this half marathon. While most people train for a run by...running, we chose a plan that minimized running and instead focused on cross training. I believe that our plan reduced 1) my boredom with running and 2) the chances that my knees, feet, ankles (or all three) would experience some kind of repetitive motion injury.
We used a combination of Les Mills Pump for muscular endurance and strength training, Insanity for interval cardiovascular work, P90X yoga for flexibility, and two days a week of running. Here's the schedule:
Monday: Pump Extreme
Tuesday: Insanity workout (we went through the eight cardio workouts in order, skipping the recovery week DVDs)
Wednesday: Yoga
Thursday: Tempo run of 4-5 miles (one mile warm up, two to three miles at faster than half-marathon pace, one mile cool down)
Friday: Pump Revolution
Saturday or Sunday: Long runs of 8-13 miles (added a mile each week)
I could not have been happier with how that training plan prepared me for the half-marathon. I felt strong cardiovascularly throughout the entire race. My knees started giving me trouble in mile 10, but I think that was due to the amount of running downhill I had done throughout the race.
Zach and I kept up a good 8:20-8:40 per mile pace until mile 10 where I "slowed down" (according to my husband...and, OK, according to me), and he took off ahead. But by that time I was mentally prepared to push to the finish and was able to cruise to the end with relatively few problems...except for those two killer hills at the very end!
Zach is moving on to bigger and better races over the next few months, and I'm moving on to the sidelines to cheer him on. If there's one thing I learned in this training process is that I love my convenient, relatively short, intense, at-home workouts that have me done by 6am. I'm ready to hop on board with the new programs Beachbody has coming up like Asylum 2 (available Oct. 11!) and Les Mills Combat (available for pre-order now at SmellsLikeFitness.com)!
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