I Think I Can! I Think I Can! I Think I Can!

Not going to lie, when I first studied the training plan I found to help me shoot for a sub-2 hour half marathon, I was a wee bit apprehensive. I mean, I've never been confused with being a speed demon ...

Like ever. (To borrow a phrase from Taylor Swift)

But being one to set goals for myself, I figured why don't shoot for the sub-2. After all, my current half marathon PR is 2:05:13 and I set that without really trying to. (True story! Check out the recap here.)

That all said, the thoughts of averaging 9:10/mile for 13.1 miles seems very daunting to me. For a plodder like me, that's a lot of speedy consistency.

Yet, as Thomas Jefferson once said, "Anything worth having is worth fighting for." I'm sure he was referring to our nation's freedom, but it aptly applies to anything that's worth having - even a simple running goal. If I am to hit that sub-2 mark, I'm going to have to work for it.

Especially since speed does not come easy for me.

With all that said, I was still a bit antsy when I saw one of the workouts in my training plan for this week when it called for 4 consecutive miles at a pace ranging between 8:50-9:10/mile.

My initial thoughts were: "Really? Already? This is only week 2 of the plan. Can't we easy into this even slower?"

Soon after my immediate, mini freak out, I realized 2 important things.

First, it was only 4 miles at that pace.

Secondly, and more importantly, if I'm ever reach my goal of a sub-2, I am going to have to work hard. This workout is simply one of many steps to get me there.

Additionally, you don't know what you can do until you try.

(So, I guess that's 3 things I realized after the freak out. And math is my strong suit.)

The run began with 2+ of easy miles before the 4-miles of fun. Because I want focus on speed right now, I did the 4 miles at the track. (Eventually, I'm going to have to do the speedy miles on the road to get more prepared for race day.)

After the warm up, I turned things up a notch and cranked out a 9:06 mile. Felt pretty good as well as strong, so I kept at it and recorded the next 3 miles at 8:54, 8:49 and 8:50.

I topped off the run with a 2-mile cool down to give me 8 miles in total.

I did it! I really did it!

One training session isn't a goal reached, but it's a start. And with each passing training run, I'm becoming more and more convinced a sub-2 is in my reach.

Now to conquer this weekend's long run!

How's your training going?

Happy running!