Mistakes

I overslept today. Sort of.

Things have been going really well with waking up in the morning for workouts. I woke up this morning on my own free will, alert but not feeling so well. I often do wake up before my alarm goes off, so this wasn't out of the ordinary. I usually just lie in bed until it does go off, but it seemed to be taking an unusually long time for the alarm to sound. I don't actually have a clock in the bedroom of my temporary apartment, but have never missed it - my phone serves as my alarm clock.  As I saw a hint of sunlight peek in through my windows, I knew something was wrong. I grabbed my phone and noted it was 6:23!

I rushed out of bed to get my day started. I was feeling a little bloated and off - maybe due to having a cider last night? I certainly wasn't feeling a run, so I decided to make today an active recovery day with a walk (but did add on some strength training with an arm workout per my decision yesterday). I'll get back on track with a run tomorrow.

FYI - if you decide to try that arm workout, let me know what you think. I felt like it was more of a core workout than arms and shoulders.

So mistake made. Moving on. Let's talk about how to limit future mistakes - I'm just going to drop this article here for my future reference when I start adding more miles come January:

The 5 Most Common Marathon Training Mistakes

I'm assuming these apply to half marathon training too.  Here's how I currently stack up:

1. My sub 2:00:00 goal time isn't really arbitrary - but it is based on a race time I achieved 3.5 years ago. Is it still realistic? I'll let you know in January.
2. Race day nutrition: I ran my first half using nothing but water. Breakfast was an hour before the race and consisted of a banana and coffee. My plan is to do the same for race day in April.
3. Panicking after a bad workout: I don't really panic, but I could do better at analyzing why it went poorly - and implementing the right changes to ensure it doesn't happen again.
4. Not increasing nutritional intake for recovery: Overall, my nutrition is pretty poor. This is where I need to direct most of my intellectual energy in the next two months, which is awesome timing (yay, holiday season!)
5. Not practicing pacing: this is easier for me to do since most of my training occurs on a treadmill. I also have MMR set to notify me at every mile what my average pace is when I run outdoors.

I just don't want this to be me after the Star Wars Half in April

163 days left.

Today's Exercise: Walking 30 mins, 20 min Arm Workout

PWO	Breakfast	Lunch	Dinner
N/A	Latte	Kale and Quinoa salad	Spinach and onion Omelet