I feel a day behind this week due to Labor Day on Monday, but the four-day weekend was totally worth it. As the seasons are starting to change and my training gets tougher, I have noticed three main changes in my routine.

The first change is I have been running in the evenings more. For the first two months of training, I was getting up at 4:30/4:45 pretty consistently to get my runs in before I have be to at work at 7:30. Now that my runs are getting longer, and the days are getting shorter, I've found it's easier to run after work and sleep in a little later. This probably won't be permanent, however, because eventually the clocks will change, and I will either have to go back to mornings or figure out a way to run in the dark.

Second, I have noticed my training gets harder later in the week. The training schedule has the week pretty evened out, with one rest day in the middle. Here lately, I have been taking 1-2 rest days, depending on how I feel, and they are either Monday or Tuesday, instead of Wednesday like the schedule has it. Reason being, Sundays have always been long run days. The book has Sunday long run, Monday easy run, and then Tuesday speed/strength run. I have found that after the long run and either 5 or 6 miles the next day, my legs are ready for a break. Sometimes, like this past weekend, my legs are ready for a break by Monday, and it worked out that it was a holiday anyway. After the rest day or days (usually just one day), it is running every day for the rest of the week until the following Monday or Tuesday.

Lastly, I have backed off to just one "hard" run a week. I felt it was a good decision considering this is my first half-marathon and I have already dealt with shin splints once. Instead of one speed/strength run and one tempo run a week, I have been alternating between the two. Last week I did a speed run with half mile intervals, and tonight I have a tempo run of 4 miles at race pace. I am consciously staying aware of how my body feels regarding both muscle soreness (and making sure shin splints are coming back) and endurance. As long as I see I am improving my endurance without injury, I am happy!

This training has really taught me every body, every circumstance, every running journey is different, and in that it's important to be flexible. Also, I just realized the race is only 7 weeks away! Can you believe it?!

I leave you with a photo dump of pictures from my latest runs.