Week 4: Motivation

Holy goodness, it's March already!

This was the first week of my official half marathon training, and I did a great job!  I am totally patting myself on the back right now.  I did have to switch a couple days around to adjust for my schedule, but I got every workout done.  So here are the positives: I increased my mileage to 20.2 miles, ate better quality food (minus the wings and beer on Friday), stuck to my training schedule, and found a vital motivator.  The negatives: I didn't drink enough water, and while I have been eating better quality food, apparently it's still too much hassle for me to actually cook meals.

My biggest accomplishment this week was the six mile run on Saturday.  I had planned on getting up early and running before leaving with the softballers for the UK tournament.  However, as I have said before, morning workouts are not my forte.  So I snoozed right through my alarms with the thought that I would get the miles in after we returned from Lexington.  Naturally, a couple of the games went into extra innings, which meant our last game of the day started two hours behind schedule.  We didn't roll back in to Richmond until about 9:30pm, and I was a little bit wary of running that late knowing it would take me about an hour to finish my run.  So I let Pandora, that wonderful internet radio goddess, decide my fate.  As Bruno Mars's song "Young, Wild Girls" started playing, I realized just how crucial music is going to be to my training.  That one silly but catchy song was enough to push me out the door for six miles, even after putting in a 12 hour day on my feet.  And the subsequent songs were enough to keep me going at a 8:28 minute/mile pace the entire time!  So there's a new little tool I have for those days I'm just not feeling all that motivated.

As a reward for my excellent week, I made myself some whole wheat pancakes with dark chocolate chips and peanut butter for breakfast this morning...oh my.  They were delicious, but they were also the only meal I cooked for myself all week.  The rest of my food intake consisted of cereal, Greek yogurt and granola, sandwiches, lots of fruit, and salads.  All in all, it was a pretty great week!