My big run for the year was the half-marathon in July. That was going to dictate my schedule for the rest of the year. If it went well, I’d do a marathon in September. If it didn’t, I’d do another half sometime before the end of the year.

Well, it didn’t go well. Don’t get me wrong, those first 6 miles were amazing! Well under my hoped for pace (I tried to slow down! I did!). And then I crashed, very, very hard. The combination of going too fast on a very fast downhill and being almost burnt out anyway ended like you’d expect. My back hurt, the back of my knees hurt, and I ended up walking a lot in the second half of the race – almost the entire 12th mile included. I still finished with a large PR, but nowhere near where I wanted to be and know I could be.

Plus, did I mention I was burnt out? Since then I took it really easy. A 5K on Labor Day, a 10K this weekend…

But it’s really time to nail down another half marathon before the end of the year, because I CAN beat my goal time.

A friend wanted to do the Vegas RnR Half, but that is SO expensive – it’s the same price as the marathon -$145! I can’t do that. I went looking for other half’s at the end of November or beginning of December that were more in the $50 – $75 range.

I went back and forth between the Valley of Fire and Tucson…and after convincing a friend to do Valley of Fire with me next year (Hi Becky!), decided on Tucson.

Now I’ve slowly been putting together a training plan. I don’t want to burn out again, but I want to be prepared. I’ve got the basics in…how long and what type of workouts. I have a maximum 26 miles in a week, most of my weeks from 20 – 25 miles. Now I need to figure out how fast my tempos and intervals should be…