Today is an exciting day. I am kicking off my Half Marathon training today and I’m actually pretty excited. I have slightly modified a Hal Higdon training (because his 10k training I used worked really well!) to be a couple weeks longer, so I start out a little bit slower. I pretty much took last week off completely, with the exception of one 2-mile run, and 3 days of biking to work. With the best intentions to run last night, I opted for cuddling in my oversized chair and catching up on my reading instead, figuring with training starting today, I could cut myself some slack.
Train with me!
It’s supposed to hit 90 degrees in Boston everyday this week until Friday, where our 4th of July will be celebrated amidst thunderstorms. I’m presented with the challenge of fitting in three days of running in 90 degree heat, and I have two options: run at 5am before work, or at 8pm after dinner. Neither of these options are ideal, but without an accessible treadmill, this is it! I will experiment and report back about which works best… any suggestions?
I did want to mention that on my only run last week (the Thursday 2-miler) This might sounds very silly, and I thought it was while it was happening, but I figured out what to do with my arms. Up until last week, my arms kind of just were still and most of my running was propelled from the pelvis, down. My arms just rested and were awkward, because I never knew what to do with them. On Thursday, I just started swinging them; pumping them forward, and I cut 2 minutes off my normal time for each mile. This seemed crazy to me, but thinking and reading about it further, verified that yes, pumping your arms allows you to open your stride wider, and in turn run faster. If you are only using your legs to run, your still upper body is blocking any inertia or momentum you have going for you. In retrospect, it seems comical to think that I ran a 10k without moving my arms, but I guess it happened. I’m excited now to have a beacon of hope that I might be able to finish this half marathon in two and a half hours.
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