Philadelphia Half Marathon Training: Week 3

by - Thursday, September 29, 2011

This week of training started out great, but unfortunately ended on a crappy note with a really bad long run last Friday. I know not every run is going to be perfect, but Friday's run was definitely one of the worst I've had in a while. More on that later.

Training So Far:
Week One
Week Two

Week Three:

Monday: 8 x 2 minute repeats

Another solid day of speed work. I think with a short warm up and cool down, this was somewhere around 3 miles total.

Tuesday: 3 miles easy

Wednesday: 40 minute tempo run

Garmin tempo run

I took a lot of the advice you all gave me and applied it to my tempo run last week. I worked on starting out slower, and focused on picking up my speed during the middle portion of the workout. It still wasn't perfect, but it was a better run overall.

Thursday: 3 miles easy

Friday: 50 minute long run

This was the long run from hell. It was originally supposed to be 90 minutes, but I could tell as soon as I started this run would be a struggle. My legs just felt so tired and heavy as soon as I started. I figured after a mile in they would loosen up, but it never happened. They actually just kept getting tighter and tighter. My calves were so knotted that around mile 2.5 I finally stopped to stretch, and decided it was time to cut this run short before I hurt myself. And then I got a stone or something in my shoe that repeatedly stabbed me in the toe until I finally stopped, took off my sock, and shook it out. Really everything that could have gone wrong, did. I made the long, slow plod back home and had to walk a lot. It was an absolutely miserable run from beginning to end.

Saturday: Rest and Tailgate Football

Tailgate football

Sunday: Football

Touch football

My training plan calls for an optional three mile run on Sundays to accompany my football games, but as sore as my legs were after Friday's run from hell, I decided to skip them this week and just focus on the football.

Total mileage: 18.5.

Goals for Week 4:

  • Give myself some more rest
  • Have fun in the half marathon

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