Firsts of the Month

Okay, so I know it's really the third of the month, but a couple of firsts happened today, so I'm going with the first theme here.

My firsts:

 

1.  First run of the new training cycle for the half marathon I'm planning on running in December.  And guess what I'm using this go-round? 

 

That's right, I've decided to use an actual training plan for this half marathon.  Running unprepared two weeks ago was fun and all, but for this half marathon I'll be running alone, so I won't be able to count on my girlfriends to carry me through the miles I'm not really ready to run.  Plus, I have a little thought in mind of going for a PR in December.  It's just a thought right now, so don't hold me to it, but I am ready to put in some serious speed work and even hill work (groan!) for the next six weeks.  Today was an interval run (sandwiched by twenty minutes of warm up and cool down running).  I found it to be moderately challenging, which is really difficult for me because I'm a 110% kind of person, so it's hard when I feel like I'm not pushing at full capacity.  Does anyone else have this trouble?  I was tempted today to do more intervals or increase the pace, but I decided to go with a long-term view.  I still have six weeks of training (coming immediately off of about six weeks of training for my last race).  That's 42 more days.  I need to let my body build up to peak racing shape instead of pushing it too hard right away and dying out as the race approaches. 

 

2.  This is my very first NaBloPoMo blog post.  Are you wondering if I just fell asleep mid-typing and my head landed on the keyboard?  I did not.  NaBloPoMo stands for National Blog Posting Month.  Through www.blogher.com I pledged to write a new blog post every day of the month.  And yes, I realize that the first day of the month was Saturday, but today was the first day I knew about NaBloPoMo, so I'm counting it as the first of the month.

 

It's a little ironic (I'm never sure if I'm using that word correctly) that I've chosen to take the NaBloPoMo challenge this month considering the fact that just yesterday I sat at the computer screen for 30 minutes trying to come up with something to write.  That's how you ended up with the incredibly interesting and ridiculously short happy Halloween post.  But they say the best way to beat writers block is to just write something.  So, that is what I am vowing to do.  Writing is like running in that the more you do it, the better you get.  Consider yourself warned.  For the rest of November I will post at least one new entry a day.  Please keep in mind that for five of those days I will be in Mexico (where they serve lots of tequila....), so I can't promise that every post will be long or deep or even very entertaining, but I'm going to give it a try.  I look forward to talking to (writing at) you every day.