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If you’ve followed my blog for very long, you know that my perfectly planned out training schedule got tossed to the side when I got shin splints in February. I’ve slowed eased my way back into running, and have only run 2 days a week. However, I managed to continue doing cardio a number of times a week while injured, which has allowed me to jump back in fairly easily!

I’ve decided that my plan for the half marathon (2 more weeks! eek!) will be to do a mixture of walking and running. As you know, I’ve been a big walker for a few years, and do a number of 4-7 mile walks a week with no problem. I want to try to avoid re-injuring myself, and I’m fearful that if I actually run all 13 miles straight with the longest training run being 6 miles, I will burn out or injure myself. So, walk/run it will be!

Today I set out for my last longer run before the 1/2 on May 5th, a 10 miler. Now, I don’t think I could’ve run the entire thing, nor would I have wanted to because of the time I took off. However, I decided that I could do it in a run/walk fashion, which I felt would be great preparation for the race. I wore a long sleeve Nike shirt and my running skirt, as well as a compression sleeve on my left leg. The temperature was between 41-45, which was pretty perfect, and I never felt overheated.

I took off slowly, making sure to take walk breaks every 5-6 minutes (not because I felt like I needed to, but I didn’t want to push myself too hard and re-injure myself). At the 1 hour mark I stopped by a place with a drinking fountain, and downed the first gel I’ve ever consumed in my life: a vanilla PowerBar gel. It tasted like frosting, but I still felt a little like I needed to gag it down. The water helped tremendously though, and I put it away quickly. I felt re-energized and finished up my run easily. I also ate half a packet of sports beans at the 1:45 mark.

All sorts of fun flavors in my fuel today!

Overall, I felt fantastic and really wanted to keep running, but cut myself off at 10. I easily could’ve gone another 3.1 to finish the half marathon today, and I’m hoping that I feel just as energized and strong on race day. I also felt like I could’ve run more than I did, but I continually forced myself down to a speed walk. I’m sure this will be a challenge on race day.

Apparently mile 8 was a little rough?

My average pace per mile was 13:07, and I will be very happy if I can do my half at that pace. I’m actually really happy about these mile times considering that I walked a fair amount in each mile. My run this morning was really fantastic, and I maybe had the most fun I’ve ever had on a run today!

Now it’s your turn to share! What’s your favorite way to fuel on a run? Do you ever do run/walks?