A history of half marathons

I have nothing terribly exciting to tell you about today. I worked, and then I came home and ran. Oh, and Tom made dinner! Chicken tikka masala and saag paneer - my mouth is still on fire - it was delicious.

Since I've been thinking about my upcoming race (39 days away!) a lot lately, I thought I would tell you a bit about my history with the half marathon.

I have pretty much always gone to my races alone, so I don't have the best pictures from some of my races. I do have prints from a couple of them, but I have no idea where they are.

Oregon Wine Country Half Marathon 2010 - 2:39:31

This was my first half marathon. I was not well trained. The longest run I had ever done before this race was 6 miles. And, because I had been sick, the longest run I had done in the month leading up to the race was 3 miles. I had no time goal, and was just focused on finishing.

I stopped and grabbed a pizza on the way home and then didn't leave my apartment for 2 days afterwards. There was much soreness.

Corvallis Half Marathon 2011 - 2:18:07

I have seriously no memory of my training for this race. I know I did some longer runs and tried to be more consistent in my running. I didn't have a time goal, but I hoped I would beat my previous time. I was shocked when I saw how much faster I had gotten!

Oregon Wine Country Half Marathon 2011 - 2:17:13

I seriously trained for this race. I followed a training plan and checked off each run as I finished it. I even have a training log somewhere in a box in the basement. I knew the course since I had run it before, and really wanted to beat my best time (there's a trend here). I somehow managed to run the last 3 miles of the race with an insanely painful cramp in my right calf, and judging from the pain I was in for weeks afterwards, a stress fracture in my shin.

Sleepy Hollow Half Marathon 2014 - 2:16:26

My first half in years. I trained, a lot. I'm not sure how I managed to get in all my runs as I was routinely working 10+ hours of overtime every week. This was my first race after I bought my treadmill. It definitely saved me this winter from the weather. There's no way I would have done as well if I hadn't bought the treadmill. I followed a Runner's World Challenge training plan, and it seemed to work. I was hoping to do well, and quietly hoped to beat my best time even though I hadn't raced in a while. You can see my full recap  of this race HERE.

Newburgh Half Marathon 2014 - 2:07:13

I still don't know how this happened. I kept my training up after the Sleepy Hollow Half, and started using a Runner's World SmartCoach plan. It had more speedwork in it than I would ever do on my own, and I also had been running with the group more. Some beautiful combination of these things led to an awesome race and another PR! You can read the full recap HERE.

I might actually get a picture at the race next time - Tom and my mom are planning on coming with me! As an added bonus, there is supposed to be beer at the end of the race - so they're pretty excited about that. :)