I am just over a week away from the BMO Vancouver Half Marathon. It is so hard to believe the race is right around the corner! Before I dropped off from blogging this month I told you about my unofficial half marathon that I ran as a training run. Running 13.1 miles in 2:18:43 on a training run was a huge mental boost!
Two weeks later I had a 14 mile long run to do. Neil and I had someplace to be at 11 am so that meant that I had to get started early. It also made sense for me to run point to point from home to where I was meeting Neil. Knowing that I had a time constraint made me really nervous. Would I be able to finish in time? I ran from home and headed out over a big overpass.
Confession: running or walking on overpasses makes me really nervous. I’m not a fan!
I don’t know if it was the nerves or if things were clicking really well but I felt so strong on that run. Granted, I had a nice bit of downhill along the route, but when I had to run up a hill or truck along the flats I still felt great. The sun was shining and it was a beautiful day.
I also changed things up a bit on the run. I’ve been running 9:1 intervals throughout training, but my friend Shannon has been training with 14:1 intervals. I figured if we wanted to try and run BMO together I should give those 14:1 intervals a try. No issues.
When the route flattened out I stayed strong and finished my 14 mile run at a faster pace than my 13 mile run from two weeks before. That was awesome.
Since that run life has gotten a little crazy to say the least… I’ve had to shorten a few workouts but I’ve tried to still do as much as possible. I also had to run early in the morning so it was time to break out the headlamp and reflective vest for the first time in awhile.
Luckily we’ve had a few nice days and I’ve been able to run in shorts a few times!
While the last week and a bit hasn’t been how I would have liked to have closed out my training for BMO it is what it is and I’m still feeling confident in my running.
As an aside, we were doing some “spring cleaning” this weekend and I finally got together a bunch of my old running shoes to donate. I probably should have counted to see how many pairs there were in those two garbage bags!
What has been up with you lately?
You know, life happens sometimes! I haven’t been running/working out as much the past week or so, but I guess I’m kind of tapering?
Anyways, with that being said, I dropped down to the half from the full for Vancouver. I feel like I have a better chance of even finishing the race, and possibly even doing well! I haven’t really raced a half for a while, so I’m not sure how long a taper should be for those things anymore. Do you even taper? Either way, I’ll be cheering for ya at the finish!
Good luck in Vancouver! I’ll check in on everyone after I’m done in Pittsburgh, loads of good stuff happening on May 4!
That is an impressive amount of running shoes!! Have fun in Vancouver, good luck
I want to let you know that I nominated you for the Liebster Award. You can check it out on my most recent blog post. I hope you have as much fun with it as I did!! If you don’t have time no worries!!
I’m hoping to do a half marathon next weekend. Since I had two canceled I am a little worried but it should be fine! And it’s on the ocean!