I bought a Garmin!

I may or may not have gone on a shopping binge last weekend.  Oops.  Josh was out of town and Steep and Cheap, craigslist, and Sierra Trading Post were calling my name out loud and clear.  After my destination run last Sunday I did a quick search on craigslist for Garmin Forerunner and found one that hadn't been sold immediately as is typical.  I e-mailed and made a phone call, and before I knew it I had purchased a used Garmin Forerunner 305 for a whopping $75.  I was stoked.  Not so much that I went out and ran right away (it was hot and I had a few beers while pruning the ridiculous tree in the backyard), but enough that I went out bright and early on Tuesday (no, not Monday) morning to test it out.  It's amazing.  I am so in love! I'll detail my three runs this week after I explain the madness known as my training plan.

I spent Monday night binge eating figuring out my training plan for the next few months.  I plan to run the Pocatello 1/2 marathon on 9/3/11 and decided I want to work to have it be my best half yet.  Instead of working solely on mileage, I took a few training plans and implemented some repeats, hills, and goal race pace runs into the mix.  I've got a detailed plan of every run I need to do between now and 9/2/11 and am hopeful I'll get it all accomplished. 


Now for my progress this week:

Tuesday - 5:45 am
3.32 miles in 35:59 - avg pace 10:49/mile
I was still getting used to the Garmin deal, so when the dog stopped and my flashlight fell from my arm, I stopped but I didn't stop the timer.

Thursday - 6:52 am
1 mile repeats x2 - 15 min. warm up/15 min cool down, 2x 1 mile repeats pushing it
4.58 miles in 49:49 - avg pace 10:50/mile

Friday - 6:38 am
2 miles at goal race pace
2 miles in 21:17 - 10:36/mile
While I would REALLY like to run the 1/2 at a 10:45 average pace, I'm not sure it's possible.  I'm going to keep trying.  It's a lot easier keeping a steady pace with the Garmin right there, but it's also not fool proof. 

I was supposed to run 5 miles today, but we went rafting, so I'm counting it as an easy cross-training day.  We're rafting again tomorrow and leaving fairly early, so I'm not sure if I'll be able to get up early enough to run for an hour but it would be nice to get it out of the way.  The weather has been fairly warm here but thankfully we don't have the humidity like folks out in the midwest.  I can't imaging running in that crap right now!  Now, if I can just get myself out of bed early enough in the mornings to make sure I get all of the running in, that would be great...