It's that time of year again! I'm starting to train for my 5th Half Marathon. I was starting to get the itch to sign up for my second Half of the year after I ran the Color Run 5k..."The Happiest 5k On the Planet... and boy was it!!!
My friends and I had so much fun just preparing for the event...figuring out our team name... "Color Me Bad" of course, and then deciding what our outfits would be months in advance. We finally made the trek to Joann's to purchase tutu making necessities.
We were like a bunch of kids on Christmas at that starting line.
We couldn't wait to get splattered with paint...or I should say ketchup bottled with paint powder. Every kilometer we ran through a gauntlet of people spraying a different "color of honor" on us. The anticipation of each color was so much fun as we ran through downtown Sacramento.
The color ceremony at the end was super fun. Everybody got a packet of paint with registration and every 15 minutes at the finish line there was a count down to throw the packet into the air. It was a rainbow of color haze.
Pretty cool to see...
and then it was an all out paint war with the remnants.
Poor Mike, our fearless cheerleader was in the midst of all the paint, capturing the moments on camera. What a guy!! I told him to not wear any good clothes and to stand back from the crowds but he didn't stray far from our sides and unfortunately got in on the action ;-)
That hat was washed in the dishwasher (yes, the dishwasher) in a special baseball hat contraption 4 times (I think) before the purple paint washed out :-/ They said purple was the worst. I'd argue green was pretty gnarly too!
Anyhoo, I was pretty pumped following this 5k to sign up for another Half. I knew I was going to complete another one by the year end, it was figuring out which one to do. I could have done the Urban Cow like last year, but I wanted to expand my half marathon horizons so I decided on a new one that's even closer to home...I'm sure Mr. Cheerleader will be thankful for the few minutes of extra sleep come race morning ;-)
So...here's what my training schedule usually looks like from here on out. I typically run 3 times during the weekdays with a day of rest in between and a long run in on the weekend. I start my training easy with 2 to 3 miles on the weekdays with my long run set at 4 miles. Then, I gradually work up my weekday runs to 3-4 and my long runs adding a mile each week until I hit the 10 mile mark. I've never done over 10 miles before a half marathon and this seems to work for me. My goal is to finish under 2 hours like I have in my previous Halfs but closer to the 1:50 mark.
Tomorrow starts the beginning of my training with a 2.5 mile loop with a pretty good incline. The one thing about this half...the finish is a pretty steep hill, so I'll have to build in some incline training.
To bed I go, for the early morning is when I can escape this crazy heat in order to get that run in. Wish me luck!
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