13.1 miles and 1700+ calories

Normally when I run on a treadmill, I get anxiety and get bored VERY quickly, even if I am watching TV. Tonight was a different story. I'm SO happy. Tonight on the treadmill at the gym, I ran 13.44 miles on the treadmill and burned 1700+ calories!!! I'm quite surprised 'cause I didn't get bored or anything. I just hope I can do this well on my 1/2 marathon this Saturday.

The only downer about running that far, is now I'm wide awake 'cause I've got all this adrenaline and energy running through my body. It's currently midnight and I have to be up in 4 1/2 hours to go swimming.

Personal 1/2 Marathon

My first official 1/2 marathon (13.1 miles) is coming up in 3 weeks. I'm kind of nervous about it. The most I've ever run (without stopping to walk) at one time is 10 miles.

I've been told a couple of times that if you can run 10 miles then you'll have no problem doing a 1/2 marathon.

So, yesterday, I decided I would try this out. Not too far from my house is a trailhead to the Legacy Trail which is fairly flat and is long enough to run 13.1 miles. I took my water bottle with me and I started out kind of early in the morning. I was doing pretty good until about mile 10.5 and then it was like hitting a brick wall. I had run out of water and there were no water stops on the trail. :(

I did 13.1 miles that day; however, I walked probably 1.5 - 2.0 miles of it. :( I feel like if I wouldn't have run out of water I would've been able to complete the 13.1 miles.

I'm fairly confident that by October 9th, I'll be able to run the 13.1 miles in my official first 1/2 marathon.

1/2 Marathon in 8 Weeks

I've signed up for my first 1/2 marathon and it's going to be on October 9th up in Layton, UT. When I signed up for the 1/2 marathon, I was able to run 9 miles each time I ran.

Well, I advanced too fast in my running and had to back down to 8 miles every time I ran. Last week I as running 8 miles until I got sick with a cold and my working out came to a screeching halt for 3 days. So, I haven't run long distances in a week. It seems like when I take any kind of break from running, I digress a couple of miles...however, I seem to recover fairly quickly.

I went running tonight and I was only able to make it a little over 6 miles. I REALLY wanted to be able to run 7 miles, but the farther I got in to my run, the more I knew that would most likely not be possible. Part of it I think was the heat (for it being 7:00 p.m. when I went running, it was still pretty warm) and the other part was I haven't been running long distances in a week.

The whole time I'm running though, I'm thinking, dude, I've signed up for a 1/2 marathon in about 1 1/2 months. I've got to be able to run that 13 miles. Eeeek! So, when I got home, I looked at my calendar and I need to be able to increase my mileage by 1 mile every week to be able to do the 13 miles on October 9th. I think it's very possible as long as I don't get sick or anything else between now and then.

Here's to hoping I don't get sick. :)