As anOfficial Ambassador for the 2015 Cleveland Marathon, I plan to do a half marathon training recap once a week for the next fourteen weeks. I will be honest with you right now and throughout my training, but I am going to warn you now - my training for this race is probably going to be very contrary to what is usual, traditional or even accepted. When I looked up the word "unorthodox" that was the exact definition I found, so yes, my training is going to be unorthodox.
The reason I expect that my training for the 2015 Cleveland Half Marathon will seem unorthodox to the seasoned runner is because the race season here in Florida starts out in about October of each year and runs through April. That means I started "training" for a May, 2015 race right in the middle of our race season. While people "up north" are running 3, 4, or 5 miles and building up from there, I am doing 3, and then 13.1, and then 3 and 4, and then 13.1, and then 5. If you are a runner, you might be scratching your head right now trying to figure out what I am saying, so I'll just put my cards on the table here:
I am scheduled to do a several half marathons between January and April, 2015. These events were already "on the books" and I am committed to them, and quite frankly, I actually look forward to participating in them, even though I have not properly trained. I will enlist the assistance of the program created by Jeff Galloway and use his run/walk system while trying to build up stamina for May. I will do my best to stay healthy and avoid injury even though I'm not really ready to go the distance - yet.
So, to bring everyone up to speed in this first report, on January 25, I completed in the awesome Suncoast Half Marathon in Lakewood Ranch, Florida. Then on February 8, I completed the beautiful inaugural Sarasota Music Half Marathon in Sarasota, Florida. Next up is the 10th anniversary event, the Fort Lauderdale A1A Half Marathon, which is set for this weekend, on Sunday, February 15. The expo for the Fort Lauderdale A1A Half Marathon is where I first met and fell in love with the Cleveland, Ohio company, SureSport. I have since become an ambassador for SureSport and I ♥ those guys and their products.
So there. That's where I'm at. There are more half marathons sprinkled in between now and May, so I'll throw them in my training recap each week. I'm gearing up to start a 12-week training program that I will locate and share in another post later since we are still 14 weeks out from the 2015 Cleveland Half Marathon. Until then though, this week's "training" consisted of:
Sunday - Sarasota Music Half Marathon. I ran/walked miles 1 through 10. I mostly walked the last 3 miles of the race, which was okay because the scenery was absolutely beautiful and the bands were awesome and I walked away with a beautiful medal, so I'm not upset at all.
Monday and Tuesday: I was recovering from Sunday.
Wednesday - Woke up with IT band SCREAMING - I did stretches, massaged it, used roller, prayed., no running.
Thursday - Today woke up feeling about 85% and very happy with the IT band situation.
Friday and Saturday - open to some small miles.
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