Half marathon training – Weeks 10 & 11 – Ready to Rock n Roll

I am running the Rock n Roll Seattle half marathon tomorrow. It could be interesting. I have run a total of only 15 miles in the past two weeks. After graduation I went into vacation mode taking trips to the Olympic National Park with my parents and then down to Virginia to visit my best friend from high school. I did a lot of hiking/walking during these trips but did not feel compelled to run. You can see how my mileage took a nose dive in the graph below.

I’ve run twice this week and my legs felt surprisingly sore and tight. This is not a good sign before going into a half marathon. I’m hoping some extra yoga will loosen things up. I’m making really modest goals for this race because mentally that’s where I’m at right now. Not every race has to be a PB effort.

• Goal #1: Best case scenario <1:55:00 (8:47 min/mile)
• Goal #2: Keep it honest <2:00:00 (9:09 min/mile)
• Goal #3: Have fun and enjoy my last long run in Seattle

The weather forecast for Saturday looks perfect: 13C with 0% POP at start time. There are 17,500 people running the half and 7,500 running the full. This is by far the biggest race I’ve ever done and it’s also the first point to point race I’ve done. The start line is in Tukwila so I’ll be taking a shuttle from downtown Seattle to the start line on race morning. This race is being run my professionals though so I’m hopeful that race morning logistics will run smoothly. I wonder how many porta potties you need for 25,000 runners?

For the record, here are my last two weekly tables for this training cycle.

Week 10

Week 11

Half marathon training – Weeks 8 & 9 – Ph.inishe.D.

Over the past two weeks I have successfully defended and submitted my PhD dissertation and participated in the university’s graduation ceremony. There’s been a whirlwind of activity around here so this post is going to be very brief and I’ll just update my usual mileage tables. This half marathon is quickly sneaking up on me!

Week 8

Week 9