Training for a Half Marathon

Lately, my passions have turned from crochet to quilting and running. I really need to show you the lovely and fun quilts I have been sewing, but for now you will have to be content with my recap of yesterday's run.  Keep in mind that I'm not a fast runner by any means. I usually only run 5ks, and if any of my friends run the race with me then they usually win medals while I'm close to last in our age group. I have been working on it with more of a gusto this past month, however, (after barely running at all last year), and I'm pretty determined to run a half marathon. The longest race I've participated in was an 8k, and before yesterday the farthest I've ever ran at once was six miles. If you have a goal you want to work toward and want a little inspiration, here's one of my running stories:

My adventure yesterday:

I needed to do a long run, but I didn't want to drive anywhere so I decided to run to our nearest park. (Which, in the process of my run I found it to be a mile and a half away.) I live in the middle of urbania. Literally. So, the run to the park was an adventure in itself. Even if I was on the sidewalk, there's still hundreds of cars flying by you and switching lanes, then there's the matter of crossing roads and intersections.  When I finally got to the park, I ran the nearly two miles around it and the lake.  I thought it had been windy before that, but oh boy was the wind off the lake strong and cold! It was creating small waves and making it hard to run against it.  I found out later that wind gusts were 19mph with wind chill at 27 degrees, and I definitely felt that. I thought about going around again, but I still had to make it home so I headed back. I then had to wait on a light, so I ran up and down the sidewalk waiting for the light to change. Mind you, this street has four lanes to cross and is on the way to the interstate, so I'm sure lots of people were staring from all those cars sitting there and speeding by. I did make it back without getting run over. All of that excitement and that trio wasn't even five miles, so I had to jog a bit around my neighborhood. I didn't make my goal of seven miles for the run, but I did make it to a half of a half marathon (6.55) and over an hour and a half of running. That's my farthest and longest run to date and perhaps the most exciting!