Training Week 5

Hello to all my reader friends! In case you were wondering, I'm still trucking along with my half marathon training. Week 5 has officially wrapped up so here is the low down.

Monday: Trainer appointment. As strange as it may seem, somehow that always ends up being an enjoyable 30 minutes.

Tuesday: 4 mile run. Notice how the distance of these runs is slowly creeping up. My friend Hannah (who is getting married in 4 DAYS!!! WOO HOO!!) ran with me and I have to say she did really good! It was a pretty enjoyable run, but again, my app wasn't working properly (stupid iphone!) so I'm not sure what our time was. My phone said 35 minutes, and Hannah's phone said 45 minutes. I have a pretty good feeling Hannah's was closer to being correct. 

Wednesday: 2 mile run. This run didn't even phase me. (NOTE TO SELF: when running becomes so easy that a 2 miler doesn't even phase me, chances are I'm about to get my butt kicked.) By this point, I was feeling so used to running longer distances that I felt confident and just knocked these two miles out easy peesy. My time was 21:50 which was pretty much normal.

Thursday: 4 mile run. Remember how I said 2 miles didn't even phase me on Wednesday? Well, I think sometimes I get overly confident in my abilities and nature likes to remind me that I need to stop being so damn conceited and realize that I still have a long way to go. This run kicked my ass. Seriously, it was so hard. I ran the first mile but struggled through it. I basically walked/ran short intervals for the next three miles. I'm not even kidding when I say this run was a lesson in humility for me. Which is probably a good thing, in hindsight. My time was 52:30. Ugh.

Friday: Rest day. Yay!

Saturday: I didn't have time for much, but I did squeeze in a bike ride, which was nice.

Sunday: 6 mile run. This is the longest run I've ever attempted, not only in my training program, but in my entire life. Up until Sunday, the furthest I had ever run was 5 miles. I guess in some ways it was a decent run, and I should be proud. But honestly, I can't help but be a little disappointed in myself for how it went. I ran the first four miles, but by the end of mile four I was starting to feel the pain. My lower back was hurting pretty bad and I was running hunched over to relieve the pain. Not attractive. If any of you have any suggestions about how to relieve lower back pain while running, I'm all ears. I started to walk. I only walked about 20 steps before I forced myself to start jogging again, but it wasn't long and I was walking again. I walked for about a minute or so and then started back up. I managed to run the rest of the way, which included the full last mile. So, all in all, I guess I didn't do too bad. I probably ran at least 5.5 of the 6 miles and only walked a little bit, but I was really hoping to run the entire thing. 

So here I am, at about the half way mark of my training, and I'm feeling a little discouraged. I've come a long way but I still have SO FAR to go. Let's hope I can get my head and heart back in the game long before December 8th rolls around.

Jesse