therunnerwithin

Week 10 is complete and I am officially at the halfway point of my training! It seems like it was only yesterday that I had registered for the Iron Girl Clearwater Half Marathon and now I am just under 10 weeks out from the race. My training had been going very well for the most part. I’ve had a few runs that I was not pleased with the end result whether it be the timing or the mileage, but who doesn’t?

I am satisfied with my result in mileage gained. When I first registered for the Iron Girl I could run 4 miles and now I have 8 miles under my belt; and I am not stopping there! With two months to the date left to prepare for this race I will have the time to get in a couple practice runs with 12-13 miles and I can begin to incorporate the incline training with those runs. Iron Girl has posted the official course map and with just a brief peak I will be running over the Memorial Causeway Bridge and the Sand Key Bridge. Just wait, it gets better, I have to turn back around and run back over both bridges to reach the finish line. Some people may already have mixed emotions about having to run over both twice but I am trying not to let that sink in and psych myself out. I know that I will be able to successfully run both their and back, I have run over the Memorial Causeway for the Iron Girl 5K last year and I know with the right training I can build up the endurance to tackle the challenge.

It’s been amazing to analyze the timing on my runs and see how I am shedding seconds off  my overall time and my pace per mile. Thus far my fastest mile has come in at 9:50, my fastest 3 mile came in at 32:09 with a pace per mile of 10:40, and my fastest 4 mile run came in at 43:03 with a 10:46 per mile pace. I am happy to see all my hard work is paying off.

My next race is the Gasparilla Distance Classic 15k taking place next Saturday. It will most likely be my last race before my half marathon. March is going to be a very busy month for a few different reasons, but I would like to try to squeeze another 10k in, if possible. I have not yet set a goal time to finish the Gasparilla, but I would like to stay under my average pace of 11:30/mile. I have on the schedule to run 8 to 8 1/2 miles this Saturday, from there I will compare my longest runs to get an ideal time.