I've been a runner for years - ran my first half marathon in 2010 in Madison, WI and ran a 2:23 (10:54 avg/mile) and my first full marathon in 2012 in 4:45 (also a 10:54). Since then, I've run more than 10 half marathons and 3 full marathons - I ran the Chicago marathon and got down to a 4:28 and my fastest half was the Madison spring half marathon at 1:58. My training consisted of mostly....running. 5 or 6 days a week - and miles upon miles every week, hitting the pavement. It was a lot of running. I also cleaned up my nutrition in 2012, which helped a lot with the PRs too.
But when I had kids, I thought my competitive (and by competitive, I mean competitive with myself) running days were over. Running more than 1 mile was hard in many ways, and it was just discouraging to try.
So I focused on working out at home in my basement - because, let's be honest - with two kids, that's pretty much all I had time for. Slowly, I worked through several Beachbody programs, including 80 Day Obsession. And then I saw amazing results in terms of weight loss and strength, and got the itch to run long distance again - and with the results that I saw with 80 Day, I was really curious at what my body could do with running again.
So my running partner in crime, Megan, agreed to run a half with me (or she convinced me to do it) and we were going to need to start training for the half in the middle of a program we were doing called LIIFT4 (an amazing program that focuses on heavy lifting and HIIT). I came up with a plan that combined the two so that we could add more running, but still continue to follow the LIIFT4 program. But we would only run 3 days a week - twice during the work week, and one long run on the weekends. Could we run a PR by just running 3 days a week? You know where this is going.
We did LIIFT4 on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and then ran on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. Sunday was a rest/stretch day. Towards the end with the longer runs, I would switch my Fridays and Sundays to give my legs a little rest before long runs. And then because LIIFT4 is 4 days a week, we were just behind one day over the program. Also - if leg day was around a long run day, I would switch days depending on how my legs felt.
We not only ran personal half marathon records - but we beat our previous race times by more than 6 minutes. We ran a 1:52:24 - which is an average pace of 8:32. For my first race after two kids, I'm pretty damn proud of this - and not just the PR and the time in the end - but the commitment and dedication we put into the training. I think we both missed one training run in the whole 12 weeks and one or two LIIFT4 sessions.
So - lessons to be learned - if you want to run faster, add weights. Add cross training that asks your body to work in different ways. I cannot recommend LIIFT4 enough.
For our training plan, you can view it here.
Happy running!
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