posted by Jennifer on a day in the life of me!, Team in Training

For those of you who don’t know, my husband and I are training with Team in Training for the Christy Clinic Half marathon and marathon which is on April 28, 2012!

I’m training for the half – my husband is training for the full marathon, which of all things takes place at U of I in Champaign where he went to undergrad and law school AND it’s on his 50th birthday – so not a bad way to spend your birthday!

I am not going to lie though – I was super nervous about this morning. Since we’ve had such a mild winter this year, several times in December and January – we ran in shorts sleeves and shorts – that every time I saw the weather this week – and it kept getting colder and colder I was worried I was going to freeze my ass off!

The temp was 15 when we got downtown to the Chicago Lakefront path. We had to be there at 8:00 a.m. I wore my tank top on the first layer, a long sleeve with turtleneck Nike shirt, my short sleeve Team in Training shirt over that, and TWO windbreakers + I put on 2 pairs of running pants – just to make sure

We arrived in the parking lot at the Wilson exit which had not been plowed yet – so we didn’t have to pay for parking because you couldn’t even see where the parking spots were – so that was excellent.

There was about 20 people who braved the cold. The full marathoners had to run 6 miles, the half marathoners (which is me) had to run 4 miles. The great thing about the Lakefront path is it’s so pretty – and it was snowing huge snowflakes so it kind of felt like you were running in a snow globe!

The path is so pretty!

So even though when we were standing around ready to get started I was cold – once I got going at about the halfway point I was actually getting warm! I even took off my gloves at one point. And since the path was cleared, my shoes didn’t get wet – so that was a bonus too because I thought I would be running on snow the whole time.

So I’ve got to really keep to my weekday schedule and get my runs in – because next Saturday we are already doing 6 miles!

Here is my schedule for this race:

January 14 – 4 miles
January 21 – 6 miles
January 28 – 6 miles
February 50 minutes – we have a long distance clinic talking about getting into longer distances and things you need to know
February 11 – 8 miles
February 18 – 6 miles
February 25 – 8 miles
March 3 – 90 minutes
March 10 – 10 miles – yikes!
March 17 – 8 miles
March 24 – 12 miles
March 31 – 60 minutes
April 7 – 12 miles
April 14 – 100 minutes
April 21 – 60 minutes
April 28 – EVENT DAY!

So not a long season. When my husband and I did the Chicago Marathon in 2005 and 2006 we started training with the Team in February and the marathon wasn’t until October – so it will be weird for this training to go by so fast.

If you’ve ever wanted to train for an event check out Team in Training – they have training all over the country (www.teamintraining.org)

AND – since we are raising money to fight blood cancers – HERE IS OUR FUNDRAISING PAGE - no donation is too small!

Have a great weekend everyone!