Makeover & New Goals !

As if you couldn't already tell my blog underwent an AMAZING makeover.  The biggest thanks in the world to Natalie over at Revel And Design. You wouldn't be looking at the awesomeness you see before you without her.

That being said, I'm going to work on updating some things this week and making this EVEN BETTER !  I've been reading some things in other blogs and also hearing it from people directly about putting yourself in a niche with your blog.

So I'll be working on making this a little more well-rounded.  I think it's important to include more than just my training plan and accomplishments because I think everything will just get real old, real fast.  Mostly because I've realized that training for the half marathon is intertwined in my life a lot more than I let on.  I'll give you a minute to digest the fact that you will actually get to know me a little more than just how slow/fast I ran on any given day.

Are you still with me ? Good. For now I'm going to stick to what I've been doing until I can get enough things set up, pictures together, ideas formulated and executed, etc.

Now that you know my goals for ole bloggy here, let's talk about my running goals. First, a little recap from the past 2 days:

Sunday:
Time: 35:12.7
Dist: 3.50 mi
Avg. Pace: 10:04/mi
(Creative Loop around my apartment)

Monday:
Time: 30:12.0
Dist: 3.04 mi
Avg. Pace: 9:56/mi
(Hibernian run-less hilly route I found)

These times are INCLUDING walk breaks. So I started looking at my runs and my average pace and attempted to do math.  When that didn't work, I used the internet, and confirmed that I run about a 10:00/mi.  My goal for the City of Oaks Half Marathon is a 9:00/mi.  I have 4 months. That's more math that my brain doesn't feel like doing, but it seems like I can make it a reality. I just have to push myself and focus.  And to do that, I made myself a little bet.

Tonight I'm going to run 3.5 miles.  If my average pace comes out below 9:56, then I'm going to run a 5K on Saturday to give myself a timed race.  If I don't average below 9:56, then I'll keep working and look for one again in a week or two.  I still plan on signing up for Raleigh's Finest 5K in July, but I want to have little races here and there to track my progress in a way.  I just really want a starting point, a place to go "Okay, this is where I started, where I need to push from and what I can compare myself to at the end." I feel like this is the best way to get over all the negative energy in my head and start focusing on not comparing myself to other runners.  Cross your fingers for me ! I'll be following the advice of RuPaul, "Good luck ! And...

Thank you for reading !