Great job Vixi. You always refer to some of us guys as speedy, but if you look at your time, you're right there with us and finishing at sub 8s is very impressive. LPH I did get my sub-2 half, though! I finished yesterday in 1:50:36! I had one of those days I wish for all my friends: running felt absolutely effortless, and in fact I went sub-8 my last two miles. I've never done that before. Absolutely great race. Will probably never do it again . . .

Thanks again for your encouragement. Larry, I don't think I'm quite up to your speed, but it's something to work towards. Yes, Ayola, I improved my PR by close to 12 minutes. Even better, at my first half I felt like I was dying coming across that finish line. My knees were screaming in pain, I was losing a toenail, and had a blister the size of platter on one toe. I could barely move afterward. This time, I was flying the last three miles. I kept checking--wait, does that knee hurt? No? Really? That's why I kept getting faster--I finally felt like I could let loose those last three miles because I was almost there. And I felt great! Hubs and I walked back to our car, over a bridge, the last two miles. I don't know if my legs have gotten that much stronger or if I just trained that much smarter. Crazy, huh?

Well, to be honest, I put together two plans. See, my primary goal really was to shave at least three minutes off my half time (previous time was 2:02), but I also wanted to be prepared to run a late February marathon if my knees came out of all this training feeling okay. With that goal in mind, I knew I had to build up enough miles through the half marathon training phase--I wouldn't have time to start building up the long runs once the race was over. Therefore . . . I went to Runner's World and asked them to create two training schedules based on my half marathon time, one as if I were training for the half and one as if I were training for the full. I kept the long run distances from the marathon schedule, which meant my daily runs had to be longer, too--I ran a lot of 6 and 8 milers during the week so that the 15-mile long run wouldn't be more than one third of my weekly mileage. But I took the speedwork workouts from the half marathon training schedule and incorporated those into the marathon training schedule. At the end I did the mile intervals instead of the half marathon shorter ones, too. I had more than sixteen weeks to train, so I took maybe ten weeks from each schedule to build up, but I'd never lost my long run to less than ten miles after my last half so I was in good shape there. I actually really like the plans from RW. They take every third or fourth week and make it a cutback week, and I think my knees appreciate the babying. I certainly ran healthier this time, even though I was running speedwork once a week (I didn't do any last time) and ran a bridge for hill work a couple of times on each of my long runs. I did Higdon's Novice plan for my first and I couldn't believe I ran 2:02--I'd dreamed of anything sub-2:15, so his plans are solid. But since you asked . . . maybe you should check out Runner's World.