Last week was a pretty amazing week for training for me. To start I ran four days in the week (haven’t done that since I hurt my knee!) and I placed FOURTH for my age group at a local 5K I raced on Saturday!

While I didn’t have a long run this week according to my plan, I was really happy to get out there four days during the week to run. Now I wish I could make it five but baby steps for now. Overall, I’m becoming much more comfortable with my form. It’s starting to feel less awkward and I no longer have to concentrate on it as much which is good. Don’t get me wrong, I still focus on lifting from the core, leaning from my ankles and “gun-slinging” my arms but it’s becoming more natural as opposed to something I have to always consciously think about.

I started off with an easy 2-mile run on Monday. I finished the run in 19:35 which wasn’t bad but I wish I could start getting a little faster. The weather was less than desirable and I definitely went out for my run way too soon after breakfast, causing cramping but overall it was a good run.

On Tuesday I just did a half an hour of yoga and then ab workouts including planks and other core exercises.

I had to run after work on Wednesday unfortunately because I much rather run in the morning. I did what was supposed to be an easy 4 mile run but ended up being a 3.5 mile run ending with my legs cramping up like you wouldn’t believe. It was only 80 degrees out but the humidity was at 80 percent. It was unbearable! I followed up this run with a ton of stretching and some yoga to help my muscles calm down.

Thursday was for cross-training and strengthening. I did some yoga and worked on strengthening my arms and legs, as well as ab work.

Friday I rested and just did yoga and abs. I had my race the next day so I wanted to make sure my legs were fresh.

Saturday was race day! I signed up for this race late but am so glad I did. I hadn’t raced in awhile but I thought this race would be a great opportunity to race before my half-marathon but more to meet other local runners. I tend to travel for running partners but I wish I had some local running friends to go on long runs with.

The race ended up being a lot hotter than I expected but overall it was really great. According to Cool Running, my finish time was 28:07 and I came in fourth for my age group which was female runners ages 20-29. I’ve never been high up in the rankings for a race in my life so this was a huge accomplishment! I went into this race thinking I wasn’t going to race hard, because I don’t want to risk getting injured before my half-marathon, and I really didn’t but now I’m wishing I had gone a little harder, maybe I could have placed higher!

Either way I’m proud of my accomplishment, even if I could’ve gotten a much faster time! Another great thing about racing locally is most of your family and friends can make it out to see you race. My parents came to the race on Saturday and lucky for me my Dad was there to take a pretty embarrassing post-race video of myself. I’m not ashamed and I’m not envious of the two 12-year-olds who beat me. Take a look:

Sunday I really wanted to work on controlling my form and my pace. With the new form I tend to run really fast, which, believe me is not a problem! But when I go out for my 10, 12, and 13 mile runs I tend to get out of breathe around mile 8 because I’m going at an 8:03 pace. So I took to the gym to try my new form out on the treadmill so I could manually control my pace. I did a quick 4.5 mile run at varying paces so I could feel the difference in each pace. I think it went pretty well and I’m hoping I’ll be able to try it out on my long run this weekend.

Overall I felt really great last week. I am hoping to have another good week this week and I honestly cannot wait for the half-marathon to be here! Eighteen days and counting!

What are you training for? How is it going? Share your training with me in the comment section below!