New Plan?

I continue to tinker with my training plan.  I recently stumbled across yet another 12-week plan, this time from Marathon Handbook.  I've now adopted it as my base point.  I mixed in some of the elements from my original plan from RunToTheFinish.  The main difference is 4 runs per week rather than 3.

One of the runs each week is done at race pace.  I did this week's race pace run on a trail near my home.  Week 1 isn't until next week and I'm still building up mileage so the run was only 1.5 miles.  Unfortunately, even for this short distance, I didn't attain my race pace goal.  It was very hot and primarily gently uphill for most of the run so I'll blame it on that ;-)

Getting Ready for Week 1

I'm still a couple weeks away from starting Week 1 of my training plan so I'm continuing to gradually build up my miles.  My long run this week was 4.5 miles.

Fitting everything into my day-to-day life still presents some challenges and I missed a weight training day.  However, I did do over 9.6 miles of walking that day so that probably counts as cross training.

More Cruise Training

My vacation on a cruise to Mexico continued to make it challenging to stick to my training schedule.

Monday was supposed to be a rest day but because we were at sea I did another run, this time on the running track, and turned Tuesday, when we were in Peurto Vallarta, into the rest day if you can call 20,000 steps a rest day.

Wednesday was Mazatlan. I managed to hit the gym before we arrived for my cross training workout.

On Thursday we were in Cabo San Lucas. It was too hot to run comfortably outdoors so I did my time on the treadmill and included some hill work.

Friday, we were at sea again and I did my scheduled full body workout.  Saturday was a travel day and I didn’t manage to do my cross training.  Finally, home on Sunday, I did my long run of the week, 4 miles.

Training During a Cruise

This week presented some challenges.  Leading up to the weekend, I got my training in while preparing for a vacation.  Then, we flew to Los Angeles for a Mexican cruise.  I still managed to get my workouts in despite losing most of Saturday to travel.

Most cruisers would prefer to spend their time by the pool or at the buffet, but instead I did my scheduled Sunday 3-mile run on a treadmill while the ship gently rocked in the Pacific Ocean.

I'm Committed

I went ahead and actually registered for the Great Trek Half Marathon in Vancouver, BC.  The course runs through the University of British Columbia which is where I attended university many, many years ago.

The training plans that I've seen are mostly 12 weeks in duration and I have more time than that until October 22 so I've been building up my mileage in preparation for the official Week 1 of training.  I just completed Week "-4".

I'm doing a modified version of Amanda Brook's beginner Run to the Finish half marathon program.

This week I completed a 2-mile and a 2.5-mile run with hills and an easy 3 mile run along with cross training days.  Like before, the majority of my training is on a treadmill.  It's felt good to get back into the exercise routine.