run a half marathon

After much rehabbing of my ITBS in my left let, I think I’m going to do the Seattle half in November, before signing up for the Tokyo full in February. :)

I’m secretly turning this training into running the FULL Seattle marathon. We’ll see how training goes… If I fail, I can still do this goal. But I’m determined, and I may have to add another goal onto my 43 things.

My training starts this week. I’ve been drinking beer, and eating chocolate (which I usually can’t stand) to prepare myself for doing without.

I think I’m going to sign up for the Seattle half in November. I’ve just taken two weeks off of running for my honeymoon, but my body doens’t seem to have noticed. I ran a little more than 4 miles the other day and didn’t want to stop. Today? We’ll see. I’d like to build back up quickly to 8+ miles, and go from there.

A personal best distance. I’ve run it twice so far, and the second time I cut 10 minutes off my time. Suddenly a half marathon seems very do-able. Just tack on 5 miles.

I signed up today for information from this program. They give coaching and transportation to athletic events that raise money for Leukemia. It sounded interesting. I’ve scheduled a group meeting already. Guess I’ll wait for the stuff in the mail.

I haven’t really seriously trained for this goal since I moved to Japan 5 months ago, but I’ve been running regularly and trying to up my milage. Everyonce in a while there’s a day or a week where my milage really sucks, and I hate that I don’t have the motivation or energy to run sometimes. And usually you know that if you could only muster the will to get dressed and step outside, half the battle is over with, right?

Tonight I conquered myself, and went for a 6 mile run, my first run since last Monday (a full week), and it felt great! When you haven’t run for a week, sometimes you forget how complete it makes you feel.

...but I can’t remember what the hell it’s called to save my life. Anyway, thought I’d look into giving it a try while I’m here. I’ve gotten my running back on schedule again, though I’m only running about 20 km (or 12 miles) a week. Maybe I’ll work on upping this soon.

I’m in Japan, and I’m a little self conscious about running in public. Get a gym membership, right? I don’t have the money. Even if I did, I enjoy running with my boyfriend who does NOT have a visa, hence cannot get a gym membership.

Gayness!

I’ve also been sick, or it’s been raining a lot the last few weeks, and I just have not been running as often as I should. GAY! GAY! GAY!

Sigh.

Things keep getting in the way of my training schedule. I’ve had an intermittent back pain for the last month or so, and I’ve recently just found out that it was a kidney and bladder infection.

The antibiotics I’m on make my chest feel heavy, and I’m still recovering from the 104 F fever I ran for 9 hours this last Saturday/Sunday.

In short, my body is nowhere near marathon stage.

Dammit.