Houston Half Marathon
Woohoo!! That's what I have to say about the Houston Half Marathon. My sister Suzuko came out and we ran together. I had so much fun. We finished right about where I thought we would - 2:33. It was a little slower than I think I could have done on my own - but then I wouldn't have gotten to run with my sister! Also - it is actually my best race time as of yet. So I'm thrilled.
We did intervals for most of the race, though sometimes we did a light jog instead of a walk. Basically we went with whatever Suzuko felt she should be doing. The last couple miles she decided she just needed to run - so we did that. A little after mile 12, Brant and my friend Jennifer were waiting with Samantha, and Suzuko did stop to give her daughter a hug. It was so cute. And for some reason my camera didn't take the picture. I got one of her running over there, but not one of the actual hug.
The weather was pretty much perfect too. It was in the 50s, and a bit misty, but never really raining, not too cold, and not too hot. Which was much better than the freezing rain they were predicting for a while.
The main thing that I learned from this race was that I love racing! It was like the miles just slipped by. Except for one point in time when I thought someone said that we were at mile 10, and then i looked at my watch and figured we were only at 9 and a half.
Other than that - I loved it. It makes the training worth it. So I've decided to do more races! I want to get semi-serious about this running thing - but not so much that it is no longer fun!
I am hoping to do the half ING Georgia which is in Atlanta at the end of March. Then I want to run the full Rock 'N' Roll in San Diego in June. Then I will run the full Nike Women's Marathon in San Fransisco in October. That's the plan so far for the year. I think it'll be a great year.
So I've started my new training this week. I decided to work on developing my base miles. This is because of an article in Runner's World that says base miles help. The way you get them is to run at 60-75% of your max heart rate.
Yesterday I took a guess - decided that meant I needed to run mostly in zone 3. So I did 5 minutes warm up and cool down in zone 2 and 20 minutes at zone 3. It was my first run since the race. It felt okay - a little slow. I came back here, and checked some things on my Garmin, and set it so that zone 3 really was supposed to be 60-75% of my max. I thought this would go much better.
I was wrong.
Today I had to go much slower! I'm pretty sure I could have walked faster than I was running. I don't think that was really the point of these base miles. As soon as I got back, I went to an online calculator and calculated out the zones again. I will try again tomorrow! Hopefully I'll actually get to run!
In other news - my friend here, Sarah, has signed up for the San Diego Rock 'N' Roll half marathon (only available to TNT participants). And in Tucson, Marisa and her sister signed up for the full. I'm so excited. It's going to be a great race! The summer season starts on February 10th. I'm excited to meet my new mentees!
We did intervals for most of the race, though sometimes we did a light jog instead of a walk. Basically we went with whatever Suzuko felt she should be doing. The last couple miles she decided she just needed to run - so we did that. A little after mile 12, Brant and my friend Jennifer were waiting with Samantha, and Suzuko did stop to give her daughter a hug. It was so cute. And for some reason my camera didn't take the picture. I got one of her running over there, but not one of the actual hug.
The weather was pretty much perfect too. It was in the 50s, and a bit misty, but never really raining, not too cold, and not too hot. Which was much better than the freezing rain they were predicting for a while.
The main thing that I learned from this race was that I love racing! It was like the miles just slipped by. Except for one point in time when I thought someone said that we were at mile 10, and then i looked at my watch and figured we were only at 9 and a half.
Other than that - I loved it. It makes the training worth it. So I've decided to do more races! I want to get semi-serious about this running thing - but not so much that it is no longer fun!
I am hoping to do the half ING Georgia which is in Atlanta at the end of March. Then I want to run the full Rock 'N' Roll in San Diego in June. Then I will run the full Nike Women's Marathon in San Fransisco in October. That's the plan so far for the year. I think it'll be a great year.
So I've started my new training this week. I decided to work on developing my base miles. This is because of an article in Runner's World that says base miles help. The way you get them is to run at 60-75% of your max heart rate.
Yesterday I took a guess - decided that meant I needed to run mostly in zone 3. So I did 5 minutes warm up and cool down in zone 2 and 20 minutes at zone 3. It was my first run since the race. It felt okay - a little slow. I came back here, and checked some things on my Garmin, and set it so that zone 3 really was supposed to be 60-75% of my max. I thought this would go much better.
I was wrong.
Today I had to go much slower! I'm pretty sure I could have walked faster than I was running. I don't think that was really the point of these base miles. As soon as I got back, I went to an online calculator and calculated out the zones again. I will try again tomorrow! Hopefully I'll actually get to run!
In other news - my friend here, Sarah, has signed up for the San Diego Rock 'N' Roll half marathon (only available to TNT participants). And in Tucson, Marisa and her sister signed up for the full. I'm so excited. It's going to be a great race! The summer season starts on February 10th. I'm excited to meet my new mentees!
