1/2 Marathon Training

I started my training for running another half marathon this March. Last October, I ran my first, here in Northwest Arkansas. The 2008 Tour de Cure Run was held October 11 in Rogers. It was my first 1/2 marathon, and I trained for 2.5 months prior to running it. My goal was to finish without walking or stopping, and I also wanted to finish with a race time of 2 hours and 24 minutes. Luckily, I found a great training schedule at RunnersWorld.com which allowed me to only train 3 days a week. It's called FIRST, and having some flexibility in arranging workouts around field work was a definite bonus. The training focuses on a combination of sprints, fast paced runs, and long runs, which really seemed to help me build endurance and speed. In fact, on race day, I beat my expected finish time significantly by running it in 2 hours and 8 minutes.

Me, on the big day last October.

Now, I'm in my 3rd week of training for the 2009 Little Rock Half Marathon which will be on March 15. I'm again using the FIRST training method, and my goal is to run it under 2 hours. It's a lofty goal, because the race route is much more hilly than my first race. We'll see...