Pittsburgh Marathon Training Update: February 2017

February got a bit shakier with my training, but that's okay! Out of the 12 scheduled runs I had through the month of February, I completed 6 - one easy run, one steady run, one fartlek run, one threshold run, and two long runs.  Unfortunately I did get sick mid-February which contributed to a lot of my missed runs, but I still pushed through to the best of my ability.

One of my biggest accomplishments of this month of training was the fact that I made a 15-minute improvement on my last long run of the month! At the end of January I ran 8.3 miles in 1:50:00, and at the end of February I covered the same distance in 1:35:00! I, of course, was super thrilled with that and hope to continue to work on improving my speed in a gradual but comfortable way.

Another major development in my training is that I have officially registered for my training half! I will be running the Shamrock Half Marathon - which is literally the only half marathon that is running on the weekend my training half falls on (lol) - but it works out because it's super close to my parents house so I get to spend the weekend with them! I have also registered in the Golden Shamrock Challenge which requires you to complete the Shamrock Half Marathon as well as the Shamrock Shuffle (2-miler) the next day. I figured having a built in shakeout run the day after the half would be awesome, PLUS I'll get an extra piece of bling for completing the challenge!

I'm still very happy with this training program and really happy with how training is going. I'm somehow staying motivated through my extremely busy schedule, occasional missed runs, and dipping in and out of sickness through the tail end of the winter. I've got my fingers crossed for continued successes throughout the rest of the training cycle!

DO THE WORK. 

TRUST THE PROCESS. 

CELEBRATE THE LITTLE SUCCESSES.