44 days until 1/2

2 months later and things are progressing nicely with my running.

This past Saturday I participated in the GW Birthday Classic 10K put on by Pacers. It was quite the windy day with gusts up to 50 MPH! Let's just say it was a good idea to stay out of the porta-potties. It was an out-and-back run along Eisenhower Avenue. Going out we ran into the wind and coming back we had the wind at our backs which made for an easy negative split. My goal was to nail down a time under 54' and finished with an official time of 53:01.

I'd like to find a race to do in March to keep me motivated, but don't really want to spend the money. Can't really bring myself to bandit a race either :p So maybe I'll try to find a virtual race or something like that.

I'm in week 6 of my training (Hal Higdon) for the Garden Spot Village Half Marathon which is on Saturday, April 9th. This week my long run will be 6 miles and I'm thinking about finally making my way to the Mount Vernon Trail. We'll see...

My current shoes, New Balance 759s, still have ~350 miles left before needing replaced but I'm already on the lookout for a new pair. I'd like to stay faithful to New Balance and have started to look at taking a minimalistic approach, maybe try out a pair of NB Minimus shoes? At least I'll have a while to read reviews.

I wish to be more content with what I already have, I'm reminded to read Timothy 6:7-12 this week.

You can follow me on twitter, @xbenailes, or check me out on dailymile.

intro

ok let's get going here. I essentially just want to chronicle my experiences with running.

I still consider myself a beginner when it comes to running. I currently am running 3x a week for ~ 30 minutes and am training for a 4-mile race on New Year's Eve.

Here's a little background . . .

In mid-May (2010) I got the itch to start moving. I needed to find a release and didn't want to spend $ to do so. So I picked up this running thing. I tried to just start running without a plan and failed. miserably. Didn't give up though and came across the "Couch-to-5K" running program. [It is essentially a running program that gradually gets you from sedentary to running for 3 miles straight in 9 weeks.] Using custom playlists (mixed using a program called Audacity) and receiving encouragement from my brother-in-law, I rocked this training program. I was humbled though when I finished up this program August 9th and fell victim to shin splints. I was sidelined for almost 3 weeks and felt pretty awful. I learned pretty much to not overdo it and really listen to my body. After some time, the shins healed and I was back to it. I have been doing a combination of road, track, and trail running and that's what I'm about to do right now . . .

current stats:
weight: 189.0

today I'll be doing the 2nd workout of week 2. 29 minute run.

next post will be all about goals and I'll go over my training program.

Ben
@xbenailes