Helping Train for a Half Marathon

Remember your first half marathon?  Each mile was SO much further than the run before.  There are six people in my office training for the Women's Half Marathon in November and three are newbies to running. One lady has never run a 5K before.  That goes to show you how powerful peer pressure is to convince non-runners to run in a half marathon.

Fresh and non-sweaty before our run

Today I met Angelica, Lizeth and Jessie out on the canal for our long run.  Angelica talked her friend Lizeth into running the half marathon also. Angelica and Lizeth had a lower mileage day with six on the schedule (they ran nine last weekend) and Jessie had 8 miles today.  Jessie has run all her miles so far on the dreadmill and today, being outside, was a new adventure. For someone who brings a gigantic purse with her to the gym, going for a run with the bare minimum is quite a change.

At Angelica's and Lizeth's 3 mile turn around point was GU time.  Since they were running 6 miles, they technically didn't need the GU but I figured it was a good opportunity for everyone to experiment with a GU and see if it worked well for them in training.  I still remember my first GU and not knowing what the heck I was doing.

I really do like out and back routes because you can break it down into a small piece and then the only option left is to turn back and run back.  There is no cutting a run short with an out/back. During our run I would only tell Jessie how far it was to the half-way point....to the four miles.  Only half a mile to go I would tell her.  It didn't matter that it was 4.5 miles to the end.  The goal was halfway and then we just run back. Jessie and I hit the four mile mark and saw the buffalo in Freestone Park in Gilbert and turned back and ran back to the car the four miles.  Jessie did awesome running her 8 miles today and I'm so proud of her.  She most likely will be really sore tomorrow.

Back at the car we enjoyed banana bread, I checked to see how everyone's stomach held up to the GU and I showed off my Garmin to Lizeth, who is a gadget geek.  Everyone did great out there running on the canal and they'll be ready to go for the race in a month.

Happy Running!