Don’t worry, I’ll tell you!

Seriously though, I know that there are two camps of people.

1. Those who want to hear all about my training, running, food, water intake, breathing.
2. The rest of the world… who are probably not reading this blog post.

So, for those who fall into the first camp, it’s no secret that I’m training for the Atlantic City April Fools Half. I talk about it a lot because it consumes a lot of my free time. AND, for the first time in a long time, my body is actually behaving, feeling pretty darn good, and seems to be on board with this plan.

As such, it’s training time and I’m armed and ready. I’ve got my 12 week half marathon plan. Bonus? I actually started training 12 weeks ahead of time. That rarely has never happened before.

Thanks to City Fit Girls and Coach Marcy for this plan!

I’ve got my sneakers (and new GoPro camera – heyyyy!).

Mizuno Wave Inspire 12s love the boardwalk.

And I’ve got my training partner in crime.

Chrissy and me, after our first training run for the April race.

Usually I don’t have the opportunity to train with my race day buddies; the majority of them are scattered across the country. You might remember Chrissy from last year’s Broad Street 10 Miler and Philly half – she’s local-ish (and we’ve been friends for the better part of 30 years).

Just before the open strains of Auld Lang Syne, Chrissy and I were texting about our training plans for the April Fools half and we came up with our long run game plan.

While we both live in New Jersey, we’re about an hour and a half apart. However, Atlantic City is equidistant from both of us so we figured, wouldn’t it make sense to train on the course? Yes! Yes, it would.

We both got really excited by this plan. We texted more. We messaged on Facebook and Instagram (to cover all our bases). We talked about the distance we wanted to go our first run. And then?

Then we looked at the weather.

So you’re saying New Jersey is cold in January?

We persevered! The excitement overrode the nervousness of the cold weather and we dressed appropriately.

And when I tell you it wasn’t that bad, it really wasn’t that bad! Once you start moving and enjoying the scenery, 5 miles goes fast!

The following week, we had 6 miles on tap. Again we checked the weather and while it was supposed to be cold, it was also supposed to be windy. Really windy. Extreme winds.

We made the executive decision to take it to the treadmill and text throughout to hold each other accountable. No wimping out!

My basement =/= the beach

I watched Pretty Little Liars (I’m liking it again, for the record – the 5 year jump did it for me).

Did 2:1 intervals and we got it done.

Well, that was not so much fun.

Then I laid down on the belt for awhile and took a rest.

I started a little bit earlier than Chrissy so I was about 2 miles into the run when she started. While supine, I texted encouraging messages to her until she wrapped up and sent me her finished selfie!

Look at that smile!

We were back out on the boards this week for our 7 mile run, with weather much like the first week of training. Hooray!

We felt pretty ready to be done at 5 miles but we kept going, circling back around because we ran out of boardwalk.

We’re still figuring all of this out as we go but there are a few hard and fast rules of our training runs.

1. We do what we want. For awhile we were doing 2:1 intervals but Chrissy has been doing 1:1 for about a year now. This past week, mid-run we decided to change back to 1:1. Why? Because it felt better. If we want to stop mid-run and take a picture in front of a sign, or the ocean, or the cool wall we found, we stop. Long slow distance, we take it to heart.
2. If you hear music, you must dance. There are a few places on the (very empty) boardwalk that have speakers with music playing. There is ALWAYS dancing. And sometimes singing. I haven’t gotten a video of it yet but trust me, I’m sure one will show up on the Instagram.
3. Stairs or escalator? No. There’s no or. See, that was a trick question. It’s always stairs. And if we’re feeling especially motivated we might run stairs after our run just for fun. (Okay, that only happened once so far.)
4. Food. Eating is a key part of the training run regiment. We found a little place that makes breakfast sandwiches and man, is it amazing. Seriously.
5. Ducks Fly Together! And when the roosters are crowing and the cows are spinning circles in the pasture? DUCKS FLY TOGETHER.

That last one is the most important. We stick together. And as long as we do that, by race day, we win no matter what.

Next week we have an 8 miler on tap and we’re really hoping that the impending blizzard doesn’t force us back to the treadmills. But if it does, I know I can do it because I’ve got my training partner in crime and together we can handle anything!

Are you training for a spring race? What’s the longest distance you’ve done on a treadmill? Do you try to run a local course before race day?