Half marathon training is not pretty. Running in general is not pretty. At this very moment, I have:
- A couple blisters on my feet that make me want to throw my sneakers away
- One bum knee from too much running on hard pavement
- Scabby bits on my inner thighs from last week when I ran in spandex shorts and my legs chafed and bled
- A distinct armband tan from when I forgot to put sunscreen on
The training schedule I set for myself involved 5 runs per week, gradually building up to a half marathon in April. Welp... 5 runs a week turned out to be WAY WAY WAY ambitious because grad school's still a thing and honestly, who in their right mind wants to spend that much time running, anyway?! So I fell off that wagon, but managed to sort of cling on to the back of it with a loose grip that threatened to give out at any moment. And by that, I mean I stuck to one or two runs per week.
Overall, I look a bit of a mess, but how I feel is another story. Just kidding, it's a similar story; I still feel like a mess. Most runs feel like I'm dying, there's a lot of interspersed walking, and I usually need to extrinsically reward myself as motivation to actually go out and do it (helloooo DQ Blizzard).
BUT-- I'm pretty darn proud of myself for setting a goal and actually making it happen. And there's been an incredible difference since I struggled through my first several 2-3 mile training runs in January. I can now comfortably run upwards of 4 miles without stopping or losing my breath. I changed my running posture to help my knees. Those are HUUUGE changes and I gotta make sure I stop to appreciate how far I've come, rather than looking at my scraped up body and feeling discouraged.
Half marathon, here I come.
