So I’m such a slacker.  I started this blog post over 2 weeks ago, worked on parts for several days and then started making christmas goodies.  Guess what I forgot about?  Yep this post and any others I had planned.  lol

So here it is!

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Thanksgiving, traveling and lots of food.  Makes it hard to get back to reality and my training plan.  I have another half marathon coming up and I had to get at least 6 miles done.  If you are in the Atlanta area, there is a FREE half marathon called Red Nose and it’s down in Columbus.

So since we returned from our Thanksgiving travels early, I had Sunday morning to get my long run in.  As I talked about last week, me and running haven’t been good friends.  So to say I wasn’t excited or eager to go for this run is an understatement.  Also my normal running friend and general partner in crime was running her own race.  This means I am solo and it’s f’n cold.

So I put my big girl pants on (thermal running tights) and sucked it up to set out.  I decided to lay down some ground rules first.  1) keep my heart rate in my zone 2-3 which is about 145-164 beats per minute 2) just try to run at a steady pace, don’t worry about speed 3) if i need to walk, I’m only allowed to walk up a steep incline or catch my breathe and my heart rate is not allowed to get out of zone 2.

And do you know what happened?  One of the most consistent and steady runs I have had in a long time.  Two walk breaks up some steep inclines or stupid hills as I call them and I wouldn’t let myself walk very long.  I found if I kept my heart rate between 155-160 ish that I didn’t feel like crap and could keep going.  Yes I got slower as the run went on to keep my heart rate in check, that part doesn’t matter.  What does matter is the long stretches that I ran and didn’t stop with a nice constant heart rate.

Here is my pace and my heart rate.  I am super pleased with this and feel better about my upcoming half.

The funny part is that I was only supposed to run 6 miles.  Along the way I saw I needed to add a little bit more distance to hit my goal so I decided to run around a neighborhood to add on.  Well I made a wrong turn.  I wasn’t “lost” per say but I made a wrong turn on the cart paths and ended up adding on almost another mile.