Happy Thursday!

I started off my morning with a 6 am wakeup and a 6.2 mile run.  I am NOT a fan of waking up when it is still dark, but thankfully the sun was up not too long after that. I have always hated being up before the sun but it has gotten a little easier as I get older.  In my stupor I forgot to tape my knee this morning and finished the run barely noticing it! That allowed me to do this:

I wanted to catch you up on training.  In case you missed my earlier training posts, you can check them out here:

Half Marathon Training

Half Marathon Training Update

I am still following Hal Higdon’s Novice 2 program, but my weekly runs have been a little more sporadic due to scheduling issues. Now that I have experienced all the great things about running with a partner, I refuse to do my long runs without one.  That means that if either of us have something going on during the weekend, we have to fit a long run in somewhere during the week.

This is week 10 of training, which means that technically I should be doing 11 miles this weekend.  I swapped weeks 9 and 10 because the timing worked out better for a partner run. So last week was 11 miles and this morning was a 10K, both on a Thursday morning before work.  Apparently we can’t make a long run work over the weekend.

I’m a more visual person, so I get a better idea of my performance with the entire month overview (above).  According to the plan, I should be getting in 3 weekday runs, 1 long weekend run, and a cross training.  I make sure to do the specified long run each week, but sometimes only got 2 shorter runs in.  I didn’t get any short runs in at the beginning of August after my run in Rhode Island because I didn’t want to aggravate my knee.  I haven’t been cross training because I like to sleep sometimes.

Overall, I feel comfortable with the training progress I am making.  As long as I can get the longer runs done without any issues, I view the shorter runs as bonus conditioning.  I’m listening to my body more and with my knee sometimes giving me problems, I may skip a weekday run to let it rest.

Next week I have a 12 miler to complete and then the week after that is the race! So far I feel prepared and I’m looking forward to new scenery and running with friends!

Question of the day: Do you follow a training plan? If so, how rigidly do you stick to it?