Diary of an overweight runner - Beginning half marathon training

This is the final week of the 5Kin100days program. Today I ran 4 loops around the library/park across the street from my neighborhood. 1 loop is a little less than a mile, I think, so I'm estimating 3.5 miles or so.

The run was good. Great even. I only wanted to die at the end and I'm ok with that. I'm no exercise expert, but I'm a firm believer that it should be hard. You are building your endurance. If you are training and your walk/run is easy then how are you improving? If it's easy are you honestly pushing yourself?

What's amazing to me is that today's run (10 minute fast walk/warm-up, 2 x 16 minutes with 1 minute of walking in between). I've found 80% of learning to run has been mental for me. Case in point: during rest weeks, I always think to myself, "oh, 4 minute intervals, this is easy peasey." And then it kills me. That's what happens when you go in over confident. I'll learn....maybe.

This weekend I will switch gears from 5Kin100days to my half-marathon training for the Disney World Half Marathon in January. It is 18 weeks away from this weekend and I must train to run 13.1 miles in under 3 hours. This frightens me, but I know this race is going to be one of a lifetime because A) my 3 very good friends (and first time half-marathoners) will be doing the race as well and 2) well, it's Disney World. Enough said.

I don't have a training schedule yet. Anyone out there want to build one for me? (I kid...sort of) This week at least I'll start with 4-5 miles of run/walking. I plan to do 3 runs a week + continue yoga/strength training.

I'm trying not to think about how I'm going to juggle a crazy work schedule and 10-20 miles of training a week. The important part is I know I can do this.