Half Marathon

Once i'd committed to the half marathon, I started doing some research on training plans. I found some good stuff on how far, how often, all that sort of stuff. In preparation for the Half Marathon, I was doing three runs a week:

- One run of about 6km at the highest intensity I could manage. Aiming to do it in around 25mins.

- One run of about 9km at a steady pace, with bursts of speed every kilometre. I was aiming to do these in around 40-45mins.

- A long run on Sunday, which started at 12km and progressed up to 20km three weeks before the race.

I couldn't really squeeze in a lot more, because I was still playing competition squash and didn't want to play poor matches because of tired legs.

By and large, the training went well. I developed a few niggles (hip flexors in particular, which i'll mention later on), but nothing major. I'd been keeping track of each run on mapmyrun.com, and in preparation for the race, I completed just under 300km of training.

On 15 May, I did the Sydney Half Marathon (my first) in a time on 97:04. My rough goal was 105mins, so I was chuffed. I'd given it my all and was certainly tired at the end, but fundamentally, I was feeling good and could feel that the training had paid off.

I'd already entertained the thought of training for the Marathon, but I wanted to complete the half before I committed fully - to reflect a little and make sure I was willing to put in the training to do it properly. Given how positive I felt about the Half Marathon, I decided there was never a better time to have a crack at the real deal.

With a little over four months until the Sydney Running Festival, I will have plenty of time to prepare properly, and give it a real shot in September. From now until the event, I'm going to use this blog as a bit of a diary of all things running related - i'll keep track of my mileage and training techniques, my diet/nutrition and probably write a bit about recovery and general health as well.

Here's my tired runners after about 18 months of faithful service. I don't think the next pair will last this long...