On New Year's day this year, I had a snowboarding 'incident.,' which included a trip to the E.R. and wearing a splint for a couple of weeks. During that time I took my exercising very easy. I did not run for I feared falling and using my splinted wrist to cushion the fall. I slowly eased cardio back into my routine first by doing the bike at the gym, then walking hills on the treadmill, and then to the elliptical. I got used to this very quickly. Not running became just a habit, and while I pretended to love it, I actually hated that I was not running anymore.

So by February I was having major cabin running fever. I thought back to previous times where I had slacked on running and noticed one fool-proof thing that always got me back in the habit --- training for a race. In the past I've done tons of 5ks and two 10Ks. The 10Ks were exhilarating for me because, for the first time, I actually had to train for them. I had a printed out training schedule, increased my mileage slowly but weekly and crossed off the runs on the calendar. While I probably could have gone out on the 10K race day and hacked out 6 miles without training (when not training for a race I usually eek out 3 miles per workout), by training for the race I was able to up my speed as well, finishing both races well under an hour, and having a sense of accomplishment that comes after weeks of hard work.

I looked at the race schedule in my town and the one thing I saw glaring back at me was the city's Marathon. Dismissing it immediately, I was shocked to find that my interest sparked when I saw there was also a half marathon. My first thought was, 'well it's like two 10Ks. Plus a little extra.' I started scouring the Internet for a good half marathon training program and found this one which was specifically designed for half marathon (and long distance in general) virgins, like me!

Two things struck me about this plan:
1. You don't run every day. Heck, you don't even run 5 times a week. I liked this balance because I hate getting into running running running and completely sacrificing my Pilates and strength training that I love.

2. The long runs started at 4 miles. I'm always turned off by plans that expect me to start my long runs at 6+ miles, so this was great.

I'm a little more than a month into training and to be honest, when I started training I could barely finish 2 miles. Those months off really took a toll on me. Now I'm easily doing 3.5 miles during my weekday runs, and I got to 5 miles on my long run so far. I still have a ways to go before I can even begin to think about the half marathon, but even if I get to the end of the program and realize my body is not ready for 13.1, I still will have the satisfaction of knowing that I increased my mileage and increased my confidence.

What about yall? Anyone training for a race? Set new PRs? Need encouragement to start training?