Taking Time Out

So this weekend, I did something that I rarely do.  I took the entire weekend off from running.  I actually took a long weekend, including Labor Day.  Not a bit of running or gym time was put in.

So how do I feel about this break??  One word.  AWESOME!  My two runs thus far this week have been wonderful.  I feel like I'm re-energized and ready to tackle the rest of my half marathon training.  I seem to hit a wall about halfway through a half marathon training cycle.  I think I took an entire week off last time!

I decided to repeat last week's training because I had some craptastic runs and I have time built in to my training calendar.  So Tuesday morning I had 4.5 miles on tap and I think I did about 3.25 before I had to cut it short to, um, ahem, head home and hit the restroom.  #runnerproblems

Yesterday I hit treadmill and did the same 40 minutes that I attempted last week. You can read more about that here.  This is how this week's redo run went.

Ignore the insanely sweaty hair (which I JUST had did last night and promptly messed up with this run) and super twisted necklace; focus on the thumbs up!  The long weekend break definitely did me good.  Here's the final shot of this 40 minute workout.

I took this picture as I was starting to cool down.  I basically ran almost an entire half of a mile more than I did in the same time last week.  I started my speed at 5.5 and increased by .1 every 10 minutes(ish) until I was up to 5.9.  Yup, I'm slow, but this is actually an improvement for me.  Anyone can become a runner!!!