Skidaway Island half marathon training: week 4 (2/16-2/22)

I'm nearly halfway to my next half marathon and training is going really well! If things keep progressing, I'm pretty sure I'll be setting a goal for somewhere in the vicinity of 1:45 or thereabouts. But it's still a little early to tell for sure.

This week was technically a cut back week, although my mileage is so low, I sort of feel silly doing that. But I am starting to ramp up my mileage to higher mileage than I've ever run before (yes, even during marathon training - I was an idiot and only ran an average about about 15-18 miles per week then). My highest ever weekly mileage was somewhere around 29 miles and that was the week I ran the marathon. And I've never regularly run anything above about 20-23 miles per week. So...yeah. Now I'd like to get up to around 30 miles per week, but I'm doing it slowly so I can hopefully avoid injury.

Since I want to train smartly, I did cut back a little bit and didn't do any really hard workouts. Even my hill repeat workout was moderate as opposed to a tough workout (as evidenced by my pace). Friday I hit some nearby trails for half of my workout and had a great time! Between the trails and the beach around here, I've got some good alternatives to constantly pounding the pavement and I definitely need to take advantage of that, not just to help avoid injury, but to also become a better runner by getting out on different surfaces.

Saturday I ran with my running group and considering this was supposed to be my long slow distance for the week, I may have run some of it a little fast. It was only a 6.5 mile run (so not long at all, really) and the measure for an LSD is conversational pace, but when one of the people I was running with mentioned we were clocking a 7:40 pace while chitchatting away, we thought maybe we should slow down just a bit. So we ran a few miles around an 8:30 pace and a few miles a bit slower. But it's good to know my easy pace is increasing. Not that 7:40 is sustainable (yet) for a long easy run, but someday maybe it will be.

Sunday was another stroller run. Can I think of these as strength training? Because I feel like my core and upper body get more of a workout than on a regular run. Anyway, D, B, and I went to Isle of Palms for a change of scenery and ran there (D rode his bike). I wasn't feeling great, so while I really wanted a longer run of about 5 miles, I kept it short. I did clock my first sub-9:00 pace overall on a stroller run though. I'm slowly getting used to it. Little B napped the whole way on this run. I think he enjoyed the warmer weather.

Overall, a good week with two core workouts. I did miss crosstraining (again) this week. It's just tough for me to get that extra workout in when I really am trying to run, at minimum, 4 days a week. Maybe next week.

In summary (too long, didn't read):

The week in workouts:

• Monday: Bodyflow 
• Tuesday: Hill repeats with my running group - 7 x .25 repeats plus 1 mile easy warmup and cool down - 5.57 miles (9:07 pace)
• Wednesday: Core Fusion Energy Flow DVD
• Thursday: OFF
• Friday: Partial trail run - 5.11 miles (8:50 pace)
• Saturday: Group run  - 6.47 miles (8:59 pace)
• Sunday: Stroller run - 3.51 miles (8:53 pace) 

Total miles: 20.66

Total runs: 4

Total core/strength workouts: 2

Total crosstraining: 0