Hello again!

I hope you all had a great weekend! It is FINALLY beginning to feel like spring here in New England, and that made my weekend exponentially better. 🙂 Plus, I ran the Run for the Troops 5k on Sunday (full recap coming!). But without further ado, here’s a look at how Week 2 of my 4-week half marathon training went.

Monday – 6 miles + yoga again. I did this run in the afternoon (it was chilly in the morning and I wanted to let it warm up a little!), which I have to admit is probably not a great strategy for me. I always have way more trouble pushing myself to get out in the afternoon than I do on my morning runs. But I got it done and at a decent pace. Despite feeling really tired Monday night and not really wanting to go to yoga, it did feel good and my tight hamstrings appreciated the stretching.

Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday – Off.

Friday – 1 hour of Group Power (a full-body barbell class) + 4 miles on the treadmill (avg. pace somewhere around 8:45/mile). As I hinted in an earlier post, I have a gym membership again at the same gym I trained at over the summer. I’m very excited about this, despite the fact that I can barely raise my arms to lift a coffee cup, even 2 days after this class. This was a TOUGH workout, but I loved it. I took this class a lot last summer and it’s fun to be back to it again.

Saturday – 4 miles nice and slow. It actually hurt to swing my arms during this run from Friday’s class and my right hamstring has been feeling a little iffy lately, so I dialed this way back. I didn’t wear my Garmin so I wouldn’t be tempted to run fast and I even let myself walk up the hills. I tried to really focus on soaking up the sun and appreciating the run. There were plenty of runners and walkers out and I happily waved to them. I even stopped to take a picture of the lake, which still has ice on it, but has definitely melted a lot over the last month. Check out that blue sky!

You know how some runs feel awful and others feel great? This was one of the great ones that make me happy to be a runner.

Sunday – the Run For the Troops 5k + an additional 6 miles at home. And guess what? I have a new PR in the 5k!!! My mom was only seconds off her PR too, so it was a great race for the two of us. My official time was 23:34 (7:35/mile!) This is about 12 seconds faster than my previous PR, which has stood for well over a year now, so I’m absolutely THRILLED to have a new record. That’s all I’m going to say about it for now though since I want to post a full recap tomorrow.

The race medal doubles as a bottle-opener. Innovative, right?!

So a pretty awesome week as far as running goes! I’m getting excited for the Providence Half. 🙂

How’d your week go? Are you as excited by the spring weather as I am?