In sad news, my Nike+ sensor has up and shit the bed. Just stopped working altogether. RIP. I've seen tutorials about how to change the battery yourself, but it involves prying it open with a sharp knife and putting it back together Super Glue and electrical tape and all these shenanigans. I may call the Mac store to see if they can fix it for me, or what they'd recommend. If it's truly dead, I'll have to decide whether to shell out for a new sensor or just try something different altogether, like a Garmin - what do you guys suggest?

I was a good girl this week and did all my scheduled workouts on their assigned days:

Monday: rest
Tuesday: three miles, 27 minutes. I did speed intervals and finished up with 15 minutes on the bike.
Wednesday: four miles, 36 minutes. Another relatively easy run. I was sleepy and not as speedy as I'd have liked, maybe because I ate about a thousand pretzel M&Ms before going to the gym.
Thursday: three miles, 28 minutes. Worst run of the week hands down. I thought I was going to woof my cookies all over the treadmill the whole time and wanted to quit pretty badly.
Friday: the most anticipated rest day in the entire world. Just took it easy and walked the baby and dog around the neighbourhood.
Saturday: six miles, 53 minutes. I felt really good the entire time. Just got to double this plus 1.1 more miles to do the half! Woof.
Sunday: yoga, one hour.

I can't wait for the weather to get nicer so I'm not stuck on the treadmill, especially on long-run Saturdays. We have a 30 minute time limit for cardio equipment at our gym so I'm going to feel like quite the asshole hogging a treadmill for an hour-plus next weekend. Fingers crossed for sunshine on Saturday! 

Two weeks of training down, 10 to go. Last week's training went pretty well. The bad news first: I skipped my cross-training workout. Just wrote that sucker off. Waaah. The weekend got away from me - I ended up taking the bebe to New Brunswick for a sleepover with his grandparents Saturday and Sunday, so with all the family time, driving, and whatnot, there wasn't a spare hour to cross-train. But I'm back on the wagon this week.

I have 10 more weeks on my training plan, which takes us to mid-April. The actual race is 100 days from today, May 18-20 weekend. So once I finish my 12-week training I'm planning to just repeat the last few weeks leading up to the half. I would like to run 13.1 miles at least twice before the actual event, just to prove I can do it without croaking. 

Last week's mileage was supposed to consist of two plain old three-mile runs, a three-mile pace run, and a five-mile run plus the cross-training that I skipped. Here's what I did:

Monday: rest

Tuesday: 3 mile run, 00:25. This was a personal best for me. My secret? I went to the gym suuuuper pissed off. Eli had been a tyrant all afternoon and evening and I was aggravated and ready to snap. Papa bear arrived home from work and took over with the little beast so I could tootboot 'er to the gym. I took out all my angst on the treadmill and felt 100 times better when I got home. Of course, I was all jacked up and couldn't get to sleep. But this run definitely helped me calm down from a very trying day.

Wednesday: 3 mile pace (00:27) & strength train. I set my pace at a 9-minute mile. I don't know why I think I can accomplish my first half-marathon at a 9:00 pace. I don't think I was really thinking, because while a few miles at 9:00 pace is doable for me, I don't know if I could maintain it for 13.1. Actually, I know I couldn't. Anyway, it was a fairly easy run and then some weight room action afterward.

Thursday: rest

Friday: 5 mile run, 00:44. I did 800m repeats and watched What Not To Wear. It went really quick and I felt great.

Saturday: rest

Sunday: 3 mile run, 00:28. I did hills and watched the Super Bowl pregame show. I don't want to talk about the Super Bowl any more.

Saying "I'm training for a half marathon" sounds scary, but the first week wasn't bad at all. I'm following the Hal Higdon Novice 2 plan, which incorporates five workouts into week one: four runs and one cross-training workout.

Monday - rest
Tuesday - 3 mile run
Wednesday - 3 mile run
Thursday - 3 mile run
Friday - rest
Saturday - 4 mile run
Sunday - cross

I deviated from the schedule a little bit. Yesterday was supposed to be my long run and today was supposed to be cross-training day and I flipped them, and I took Thursday as a rest day and did Thursday's run on Friday. Overall I stuck to the plan. For cross-training I did the Jillian Michaels Yoga Meltdown DVD. I did a weights workout Tuesday after my run and managed to frig my back up doing squats on the smith machine. I did a little elliptical after Wednesday's run too. And today's four miles ended up being 4.85. It was nice and sunny outside and easy to go a little farther.

BUT! Everything got done. That's the main thing!

I like having a plan to follow. It makes me more accountable saying I need to work out X number of times this week, even if I flip the days around sometimes. It's like having an appointment in my calendar and makes me much more likely to follow through.

The best things about training this week were definitely my ugly new sneakers, which are super comfy, and my run outside today. I can't wait for the weather to get nicer and the sidewalks to be less of a death trap so I can get out more.

One week down, 11 to go!