Let’s be clear about this – I’ve never been a swimmer. It’s just not me. Growing up I never had enough body fat to float, and swimming just never stuck.

Don’t worry, I’m safe in the water. I can tread water like nobody’s business.

Given that it’s great cross-training, in the last year or two I have given swimming a really good try. I’ve learned many things – good goggles are imperative, a good swim cap keeps water out of your ears, and a nose plug, while being helpful, is really hard to get put on correctly and comfortably. I need a new swimsuit, but that will just have to wait until I can afford it.

So, my scheduled workout for tonight was a swim.

I was tempted to skip a workout altogether, as it was the day after a hard workout and I had scheduled cross-training. Plus I was already home as Chris had an eye appointment this afternoon. I was also tempted to do tomorrow’s 40 minute run. But, I convinced myself to stick to the schedule. It’ll pay off later.

You know, the 30 minute swim (broken into 10 minute segments because I’m really not a swimmer) wasn’t so bad. I did 28 lengths of the pool, I think, so 14 laps. Assuming it’s a 25m pool, that’s 700 meters. Could have been worse.

It was a slow night at the pool, so they also had all the fun ‘lap swimmer’ pool toys out – kick boards, flippers, and hand paddles. I gave the paddles a try, as they are supposed to help with your stroke (guess what? they did!). I also gave the kick board a go, as doing it backwards with the board behind your head is supposed to be killer for your abs.

Overall, we’ll call this workout a success, despite the fact I still feel like a fish out of water in the pool and it took nearly half the workout for me to even remember how to correctly move my arms during my stroke.

Well, today marked my first ‘hard’ run to prepare for the half-marathon.

My runner’s world schedule indicated it as ‘speedwork’, which to me means long intervals It’s mile repeats, a workout I’ve been excited to try since it was featured in Runner’s World this month.

Here is what was scheduled: Speedwork: 5 mi, including warm, 2 * 1600m in 8:39 with 800m jogs.

8:39 miles? Sounds scary! But, I knew I could get close, and I figured if I made my 800 jog in between slow enough to recover, I could probably do it.

Since I was running on the treadmill and not on a track, I went with 1600 = 1 mile and 800m = .5 miles (trust me, it’s really close enough). A (not so) quick conversion shows that 8:39 for a 1600m is 8:42 for a mile.

The warm-up was started around the track at the gym as all the treadmills were in use. After 1 mile, I got a treadmill and ran another .5 mile for warm-up, figuring that being more comfortable with my warm-up was more important than a really long cool-down. And being limited by the speeds offered by the treadmill, my option was 8:41 per mile. The first one was easy. I definitely had to work at the second, but I made it through. Then did a slower .5 mile jog and a .5 mile cool-down.

Quick synopsis: 1.5 mi warm, 2 * 1 mi @ 8:41 w/ 800 jogs; .5 mi cool down (5.1 mi). Since I wasn’t on the treadmill, my Nike+ had actually registered 1.1 miles when I got on the treadmill. It’s probably actually pretty accurate since I was still about .1 miles ahead after running exactly 4 miles on the treadmill. Glad my calibration worked last night! (Of course, I happened to be on the same treadmill I calibrated on, which probably helped).

Of course, like I said yesterday, part of the hard part is making sure you do easy stuff easy. I had a little problem with this today, as I ran the last part of my cool-down much faster than I should, because I like to get used to that end-of-run kick that’s so much fun in races.

Went in the hot-tub afterward. At this point I told Chris that I really shouldn’t feel as good as I did. I really felt great about my run. It was challenging, but certainly not overly so. I didn’t get overheated or over-tired. I felt like I’d had a healthy workout. My guess is that this means I really am in as good shape as I think I am, and as I planned for in my workout schedule.

Well, nothing ever goes as planned. Or even if it goes as planned, it’s not how you expected.

The plan for today was an easy 20 minute run.

I woke up with a headache and generally not feeling well, so I didn’t run this morning.

Being that there’s a tax deadline tomorrow (corporate extensions), we had a good amount of things to do at the office. So, the hour-long power outage was not welcome today (especially since the gym is closed for school use during that time and we couldn’t ditch the office for a post-lunch workout!) The power outage set us way back, and we were at the office until 6:30. I was exhausted and at that point, planned on going home and crashing – meaning, no run. Given that we have no clean plates at home (how did that happen?), we decided to eat at El Chubasco. As we were leaving, I got an email from a client about one of the corporate returns – that he’s leaving for the airport at 8 tomorrow morning. So we found his number and had him meet us at the office tonight to get the return.

After this, I found I actually had plenty of energy to go to the gym thanks to dinner. Chris felt better after dinner, too, so we headed to the gym.

As is often the case with runners, making yourself do the easy runs, and doing them easy, is very difficult. But, I did it. I ran easy, breathed easy, and didn’t try to beat anything. I did calibrate my Nike+ afterward to hopefully improve the distance accuracy for tomorrow…when I have my first interval training run planned.

I am of course very glad I ended up getting my run in tonight. There’s nothing quite like the peacefulness your body feels post-run, and I’m glad I’ll have that trying to go to sleep tonight.

I’m thinking about blogging my training for a half-marathon this December (so, from now until December 13). But then, I don’t think there’s actually anyone who knows this page exists…

Let’s start anyway.

I have done two half-marathons and a full marathon in the last 2 years. Before I even attempt another full marathon, which is an intensely demanding experience which I’m not sure I can handle more than once every two years, I really would like to run a half-marathon in less than 2:30.

According to the training-schedule-maker on Runner’s World, based on my past 5K times and their training schedule, I should actually be able to run a half-marathon in more like 2 hours. We’ll see. I’m perfectly happy to aim for that in my training, but won’t be overly disappointed if I don’t make 2 hours in the actual race.

I’ve looked at several options for training. For the last month or so, I’ve run 12 – 16 miles a week, 3 – 4 days.  And I’m happy to work harder in the next few months to succeed at my half-marathon time goals.

I don’t like the coaching program Nike+ was offering. It’s too rigid and doesn’t really allow for me having an ‘off’ day on what it scheduled as a hard-workout day. I’ve had fairly good luck with the Runner’s World training schedules before. Using that as a base, I’ve adjusted it so that I get to do some of my favorite workouts along with their scheduled speed work, tempo runs, and long runs. I moved around the days of said work to keep things from getting mundane. I always have Friday and Sunday off, with Saturday being my long run day.

I haven’t registered for the race yet. I can’t afford the entry fee, let alone know if I can afford to travel to Tucson December 13. That will be something I will work on in the next month.