Believe

Most winters I just run whatever I feel like, whatever I can do, and don't stress too much about missing runs because of snow or ice or negative temps. I've been doing that this winter until I realized a couple of weeks ago that I should probably start training for a half-marathon I signed up for in May. This will be my first spring thirteener, so it kind of fell off my radar. Luckily I thought of it in time. I only had to cut one week off my 16 week plan and I had unintentionally run exactly what I needed to for the first week, so it worked out well. I printed up my fridge plan, as I always do, but it didn't feel quite right.

Back in the fall I bought Lauren Fleshman's Believe journal for myself. I've always been a spreadsheet fridge plan girl and not a handwritten journal plan girl, but Lauren Fleshman could write some notes on a dirty napkin and I'd buy it. When I got it I read through all the helpful tips and chapters but I didn't dare write in it. It was just too pretty. Too special. 

But now that I am doing more than just running and checking mileage off on a spreadsheet, my fridge plan is not quite enough. So I grabbed a pencil and transferred my plan to the journal. I wrote out all the mileage for the entire 15 weeks, leaving room for both planned and actual mileage. For the next 2 weeks I've also written in the Jessica Smith workouts I plan to do, as well as my biking workouts (not just idly biking anymore either-- doing actual workouts on the bike to improve my running speed). I figure I'll do that 2 weeks at a time because my cross training is always up in the air...

Like I said, I've always been a fridge plan girl and I still have it up on the fridge. But I am LOVING using the journal. Yesterday I had planned to do my favorite speedwork workout, Fast 40:

10 min warmup

4 x 30 secs 10k pace / 90 secs easy

4 x 60 secs 5k pace / 60 secs easy

4 x 30 secs 10k pace / 90 secs easy

Cool down

But I needed 4 miles and I don't usually get it doing this because I normally walk all the recovery parts. My initial plan was to just tack on more to the cool down to get to the 4 miles. But when I finished the planned workout, I decided to add on another 4 repeats. 

10 min warmup

4 x 30 secs 10k pace (9:01) / 90 secs easy (2 of them walking, 2 easy run)

4 x 60 secs 5k pace (8:39) / 60 secs easy (walking)

4 x 30 secs 10k pace (9:01) / 90 secs easy (2 of them walking, 2 easy run).

4 x 60 secs 5k pace (8:39) / 60 secs easy (walking)

Cool down

It was awesome. I decided to slow down my fast paces instead of jumping right into my goal 5K pace... And it was the best. I was still running faster than I normally do, but instead of quitting or holding onto the arms of the treadmill, I ran strong and SMILED. Yes, I smiled. It was such a great run. I was able to run some of the recovery instead of just walking. And I couldn't adequately express that on a spreadsheet! But I could in the journal. I meant what I said in the yearly goals-- I'm not going to define myself by my race times. But I'm still going to try to do my best to break those PRs. Being able to look back and see those little added notes will help me Believe that I can do it.