Will Run For A Medal: Spring Half Marathon Training Program and Elf Run Virtual 5K

This week absolutely flew by! About mid-week I received an email from Fleet Feet containing information about their Spring half marathon training program, which I signed up for a few weeks ago. When I originally saw the email advertising this training program I was interested until I saw the price. At that point I decided to take advantage of the free half marathon training program offered by another running store in town. But I knew the truth. I knew that I had signed up for the free training program twice already and had only run with the group one time between those two training programs. I also knew that I hadn't PR'd since the last time I was training with a group way back in 2010 at the San Antonio Rock 'n' Roll Half Marathon. But what sold me was when I went to Fleet Feet for my caloric expenditure test, which was administered by one of the coaches of the half and full marathon training programs. The way he described the program made it seem like the perfect fit for me and like it was everything I had been missing from my training routine. So when I received a 15% off discount code via email for the Spring training program, I signed up. Shortly after, I found out that a co-worker also signed up and plans to run her very first half marathon as the culmination of the training program. It was a sign.

The email I received this week further proved that this program was going to be a good fit for me. The email gave us details about the kick-off meeting in January, but also contained a survey to help the coaches determine which pace group we should be in. The survey was a bit of an eye-opener for me. It made me realize that I was totally slacking on my training and not running as much as I used to or as much as I "should be" before each race. It was very hard for me to put my real weekly mileage and my real typical race pace on the survey. I wanted to make myself appear faster to be in a faster pace group but as the coach explained to me during my caloric expenditure test, you have to start where you are and work towards your goal rather than just starting where you want to be. This makes sense to me as I am typing it, yet it goes against what my original instinct would have been. So I clicked "submit" on the survey and will happily work with whatever pace group I get put into. I am really looking forward to this program starting in January and I will keep you posted as things progress.

Mid-morning today I went for a 5K run on the Katy Trail. I had signed up for the Elf Run, which is a virtual race organized by another Midwestern runner as a fundraiser for St. Jude. So today I ran the virtual 5K that she set up and yesterday she ran the St. Jude Memphis Half Marathon. I took a few pictures after my run this morning.