Half Marathon Training!

My first half marathon is officially 12 weeks from Saturday, so it's time to start my faithful training.  I'm hoping this blog will keep me accountable!  My weekly training schedule will look something like this:

Monday: Rest
Tuesday: 25 minutes intervals (4 minutes in HR zone 3 and 1 minute recovery in HR zone 1, repeat 5 times)
Wednesday: Repeat Tuesday intervals + strength train (most of the time I will be doing Anna's group race training at Lifetime)
Thursday: Base building 30-60 minutes (same pace as Sunday long runs)
Friday: Rest
Saturday: 18-24 minutes "peak" intervals (2 minutes in HR zone 4 and 1 minute recovery in HR zone 1, repeat 6-8 times)
Sunday: Long Run (HR zones 1 and 2, basically I will just be running these at a slow, comfortable pace)

Before my intervals I will do a 10 minute progressive warm-up and some stretching!  The distances for my long runs will hopefully look like this:

Week 1: 7 miles
Week 2: 8 miles
Week 3: 9 miles
Week 4: 6 miles
Week 5: 8 miles
Week 6: 10 miles
Week 7: 6 miles
Week 8: 11 miles
Week 9: 12 miles
Week 10: 6 miles
Week 11: 8 miles
Week 12: Half Marathon!

I pretty much made up this schedule just for me, but it's loosely based on Hal Higdon's training plans, and the heart rate training intervals are from my trainer Anna.  My longest run to date is just over 7 miles so I'm excited to build up to that half marathon distance over the summer!  This weekend I think I'm going to run a 5k race by my house with some friends and my girls in the jogging stroller!  Here they are in their stroller spectating last year at my very first race, the Maple Grove 5k: