How I Achieved My Shiny New PR

Despite the fact that my legs scream in pain every time I try to sit down or walk down the stairs or bend over to pick something up, I am walking on air. As I mentioned in an earlier blog post I had a goal to beat my previous half marathon time of 2:24:14.  It wasn't entirely a pie in the sky idea, since February I have been working on increasing my speed and leg strength by doing speed intervals, hill training and plyometric training.

Since I am not a professional athlete and have two small children, my training wasn't always to the letter.  I think this is why I had some anxiety about beating my previous time.  I also lack experience so I wasn't sure just how much I could reasonably expect to bring my time down in matter of 4 months. 

After my last half marathon I did a 60 day program called Les Mills Combat.  It is mostly a kickboxing type workout but it has two workouts called Power HIIT and Plyo HIIT.  These two workouts were amazing and I incorporated them into my training for the OC Half after reading about the benefits of plyometric training to long distance running.  The gist of the article is that jumping improves balance, power, strength and flexibility. Here is the link to read more about the benefits of plyometrics:

http://www.runnersworld.com/running-tips/why-should-distance-runner-do-plyometrics

Sometimes I ran short on time and combined my long run with a hill workout.  I studied the course map and knew that a relatively significant hill would be around 10 miles into my race.  When I did my long training runs I purposefully saved a couple of hills to do at the very end of my runs when I was tired so it would simulate race conditions.  I made a conscious decision to make my training harder than my actual race so that on race day it would feel easier.  

It worked, my first three miles were significantly faster than any of my other long runs.  There were a lot of downhills that I took full advantage of and let gravity do its work.  I was worried that with the downhills being at the beginning of the race that I would go out way too fast and lose steam as the hill approached.  I had set my Garmin to keep my splits every 1/4 mile, so it was easier for me to check my pace and readjust if I was going too fast.  

When I got to the 11 mile marker and looked at my Garmin I knew that I would be able get a PR. At that point I almost decided to ease up a bit and then I thought of all the encouragement I had received from my friends while I was training and I pushed as hard as I could.  Looking at my Garmin and knowing that I had taken almost seven minutes off my time was incredible.  I got a shiny new medal and a shiny new PR of 2:17:44.

I'm taking this week off to recover, just some gentle stretching and yoga.  I've already made plans to try some new workouts now that I am off a training cycle, looking forward to incorporating Les Mills PUMP and Spin into my routine.  

What do you do once you achieve a goal?  Do you take some time off or do you set new goals for yourself?