Eau Claire Half Marathon Training – Week 1

I’m officially back in training mode! It feels good, but I can also tell I’m not quite at the level I’d like to be. I’m not too far off, but I’m hoping getting back into the regular routine and following a training plan will get me back up to where I’d like to be soon.

As I was planning my spring races last fall, I knew I wanted to do a half marathon. This was the perfect year to give the Eau Claire Half a try. It is in my hometown, after all!

I’m following the same training plan that I did last spring to train for the Divas Half Marathon where I broke 2 hours. I’m not really sure yet what my goals are for this year’s half, but running strong and feeling good are a good place to start.

Here’s how week 1 of training went.

Monday – rest

I was technically supposed to do 30 minutes of cross training, but after the tough Pettit Marathon Relay on Saturday, I decided one more rest day would be ok.

Tuesday – 3.22 miles (9:30/mile)

I met up with some of the Oiselle Volee team for a group run and dinner. We ran along the river on the St. Paul side and then had some Pho at a Vietnamese restaurant to warm up.

Wednesday – 4.01 miles (9:37/mile)

Sometimes getting out of the house for a run after work is tough. I was a bit tired after the day, so started out telling myself I could do 3 or 3.5 miles if I wanted. I got going and started to feel good, so I settled in and made it the full 4 miles to hit my full training run for that day.

Thursday – 3.04 miles (9:34/mile)

An uneventful 3 mile run, and those are totally ok with me!

Friday – rest

I met my sister and a couple of friends for dinner and a Gopher hockey game!

The Gophers beat Ohio State 2-1! The game started at 8 p.m. — a little later than normal. By the time I got home and got to bed, it was about midnight.

Saturday – 3.15 miles (9:34/mile)

I let myself sleep in a little bit after a later bedtime and got a few things done around the house in the morning. Around 11:30, I headed out for a quick run.

After that, it was a quick shower and lunch before heading to help out a friend at a fundraising event. We were bagging groceries for donations.

On my way home, I got some gas and a car wash since the weather was finally warm enough. I had to grab a little coffee at the gas station knowing that I had one more outing for the day.

I headed to a girls’ night out/birthday dinner for a friend.

We made a stop for another drink after dinner, so it was another late night with a 1 a.m. bedtime. So yea, I know I’m getting old when a midnight and 1 a.m. bedtime for a Friday and Saturday night are “late.” 😛

Sunday – 4.23 miles (9:30/mile)

This was my long run for the week. Feels a little weird to call 4 miles a long run, but also felt nice not to have a daunting distance ahead of me as I get back into training. It was a good run and I’m looking forward to building up the long-run mileage over the next 11 weeks.

I got a couple of other errands done during the day and then met up with a friend for dinner. It was Restaurant Week, so we feasted on a 3-course meal. We split the mac & cheese and pot pie, which was a really good decision because both were amazing! A true comfort food meal.

I did a lot of eating out over the weekend. While it was fun and really good food, I’m hoping to get back on track this week.

Pettit Indoor Marathon Relay Race Recap

I’ve run a lot of races. Lots of different distances. Lots of different locations.

But the race I did last weekend was definitely a first. It was a marathon relay, so 4 people were covering 26.2 miles. That doesn’t sound too unusual, but the kicker for this race was it was indoors…on a track…surrounding an ice rink.

It was at the Pettit National Ice Center in Milwaukee, WI.  This race was a meet up for a lot of area Oiselle Volee runners. I recently joined the Volee team, so I was excited for my first race as an official member. There were 10 Oiselle teams doing the marathon relay–40 ladies total. My team was made up of three other Minnesota Volee members.

For the relay, you can split up the distance however you want, but most teams do 12 x 800’s. Meaning, you do two laps around the track (800 meters) and then change runners. Each person does 12 two-lap sets.

You wear an ankle bracelet to keep track of your official time, so you have to hand off the bracelet each time you change runners–just like passing the baton in a relay. Our on-deck runner was the person in charge of moving the bracelet from one runner to the next.

Since we were running shorter distances with each leg, we all tried to push our pace a bit. It was like an intense interval workout. The concrete under the track and the fact that you were running in circles in the same direction took a little bit of a toll on your body. I could feel it a bit in my left calf and my right hip.

I didn’t have a watch to keep track of my personal pace/time for each leg, but I was able to sneak a peak at the main race clock and get an idea of how fast I was going around the track. I think I was hanging somewhere around 2:15 – 2:20 per lap. No matter what the pace, I felt like I was pushing myself to run as fast as I could with each leg.

Everyone on our team was doing awesome and flying around the track! Very fitting since our team name was The Flying V!

We finished the marathon relay in 3 hrs 39 min 37 sec! I don’t think I’ll ever be able to achieve a marathon time like that on my own, so it was amazing to do it on a team with three other stellar runners. And with the support of all the other Volee teammates cheering each other on. We kept it light and fun all weekend with lots of laughs and a fair amount of inside jokes when the weekend was over. 🙂

Certainly an interesting running experience! If I do this race again, I’d probably train a little bit differently to prepare for the speed and interval aspects, but overall I felt good throughout the race. Getting my running groove back slowly but surely.

Next up is training for a spring half marathon with a 10 mile and 10K race thrown in. Looking forward to getting back into a regular training routine!

Have you ever run an indoor race? What’s on your spring race schedule?