The half marathon training schedule that I am following is extremely helpful. On my own I know I need to increase mileage as the race date approaches, but without a schedule I would most likely be under-trained or exhausted from over-training. When I looked at my schedule last week and saw my next long run didn't give me a number of miles but a time, so instead of running, let's say, 9 miles, I was supposed to run for 1:45 minutes with the last 1/4 of the run at a slightly faster pace. On top of that the schedule claimed that I should feel 'refreshed and not fatigued' at the end of the run. Well, to be honest, I was nervous about the length of this run. So far I have only run for an hour to an hour and fifteen minutes. Plus I was running on my own. In the end I was just fine. The last 25 minutes of my run was rough. I wanted to be done. I was ready to be done. I think it was more mental than physical, though. When I finished I made sure I did plenty of strecthing before I did anything else. I have been plenty sore in the past because of poor stretching.

Next week I will make sure the trail I run has mile markers the whole way. That's right. There were two on my trail then for whatever reason there weren't any more. Hmm...Oh well.