back at it

So after shaking the doubts and demons created by holiday overindulgence, I got back to training last week. I neatly completed my 3, 6 and 8 mile runs. I'm also getting the hang of the Garmin. When it wants to it gives you pretty useful data. I can see my splits for each mile. I've learned to take the pace times when actually running with a grain of salt, since there can be a delay. It was actually this phenomenon that caused me to stop running altogether. You run up a hill and your pace drops to like 13 min miles, then you run down the hill and you are haulin ass and it still gives the uphill pace. I really let this get in my head, but now I am over it and I realized that it's right more than it's wrong. Like on Saturday, my feet were moving at the same speed, but the nasty headwind and long uphill run back home had me standing still. The half in two weeks will be downhill with a tail wind, so I feel like the brutal uphill run was good training. I took off pretty much from Thanksgiving to New Years so I've got to make the few runs I can squeeze in between now and the race as productive as possible. Having taken a break my legs do feel much fresher, I was wiped out from my long run, but no serious soreness in the usual spots (knees, feet and IT band.) Of course my lethargy could also be attributed to the record breaking cedar pollen count (11,000)!!!! I'm looking forward to each and every one of my runs from now until Jan. 25 when I run my first half marathon. I'm even looking forward to getting this race over with and having some unstructured time to do some mountain biking and some trail running. I really wanted to do a trail run for this weekend's 10 miler (Barton Springs to Sculpture, anyone???)but I am not willing to risk running this fun and easy half marathon with stabbing screwdriver pain in my foot like the last 3 miles of the dirty du.
Since I took the long lay off realistically, I shouldn't get my heart set on a particular time, but as a runner, it is my obligation to be completely OCD, sooooo I am hoping to run it in about 2:30 or 2:40. The course actually follows my Thursday evening "quality" workout course, then follows the route I take when I ride my bike downtown. I've run the entire course many times before both directions (uphill and down) and in my pre-running days, I rode the course on my cruiser with a friend who was racing. It's a local race with lots of familiar faces. I'm sure it will be a lot of fun.