Days away from my 7th half marathon and nervous

I am a tad nervous to say the least. This sunday, October 27th, i will be running my seventh half marathon. My first half post Peyton. The last half marathon i ran was February 2012. Which due to the weather was my worst time for a half marathon yet the race where i felt the most hardcore. After that race i felt like i was part of an elite runners club. We ran the race the day after a huge blizzard and temps dropped to -20 c. Brrrrr. Steph and i powered through it and finished which was clearly the only goal.

Originally i had planned on doing the Fredericton fall classic september 22. However with a 6th month old (who i'm still breastfeeding) and being on maternity leave it just didn't make sense to travel for a race. So i pushed my goal race to Legs for Literacy over a month away from my original plan. I semi took a week off from hard training workouts and then kept on with my really effective speed workouts.

Fast forward to now i have only been able to run once a week for the last 3 weeks. A little over a month ago i started getting issues with tightness in my left glute which then moved to my hip. So needless to say i am nervous and not so confident about my speed anymore. My 1:40/1:45 goal is now out the window and i am just aiming to finish, tight hip and glute in tow. Who knows i may surprise myself! But i don't want to get my hopes up.

I have been getting treatments and exercises from my physio, Heidi, and she has cleared me to run the race but i must take 2 weeks off of running after the race to give my body a break and let it heal. Which will be tough mentally as i already have dialed it down the last few weeks work out wise and i haven't ran much or worked out as intensely. I have been doing a lot of yoga and focussing on upper body, core and lots of walking to help stretch my hip out.

In hindsight i should have taken a 2-3 week break from hard running workouts when i decided to change my goal race up. Allowing my body to heal a bit then back in to my hard speed workouts and tempo runs. Oh well lesson learned for future half's.

Here is the great schedule i used for training for my half marathon and i also used pace calculators like bane.info and Mcmillian to help me pace my workouts to reach my goal. I will report back Monday with how i make out at the race.


Happy running and good luck to all those runners racing this weekend at Legs for Literacy.