I ran my first half marathon at Disneyland in California. I ran my second half marathon at Disney World in Florida. I’ll be running my 3rd half marathon at my home city Chicago, IL! In this blog post, I share about my journey so far with running half marathons, the reason why I’m running it and my goal for my 3rd half marathon.
Which race?
I registered to run All Community Event’s Chi Town Half Marathon. It will be in Chicago, IL on April 4th, 2019.
Why?
I had hoped to run the half marathon in Springfield, IL as I had mentioned on a previous blog post. The race is on the same exact day. For several reasons running the half marathon in Chicago was the best choice for my circumstances and that is why I chose Chicago over Springfield.
The reason I wanted to register for a 3rd half marathon was because I’ll be training for my 1st full marathon staring some time in Summer 2019. I know that if I don’t have a race scheduled, then I won’t be running much.
My plan is to train for this half marathon and then take a week or so off from running and then slowly start increasing my mileage for a full marathon (Jan 2020). I’m so pumped for this year and next!
About my previous half marathons
I’ve registered for 5 half marathons so far, but I’ve only ran 2 and 1 is in the future.
I registered for my 1st half marathon (July 2015,Chicago) as soon as I started running in 2015. I got pregnant May 2015 and my OB said “running long distance during a pregnancy is like doing drugs,” so I opt out and did a 10K instead.
The second time I registered for a half marathon was during my pregnancy and it was for Disneyland’s half marathon (September 2015). I ran it 5 months pregnant and that was my first half marathon! It was one of the best days of my life 🙂 By the way, I was cleared for this by a different OB.
The third time I registered for a half marathon was during my pregnancy for Disney World’s 2015 Wine & Dine half marathon. Due to thunder the course was cut in half so there was no way I could have ran my 2nd second half marathon that day. I was not mad about it because I was 7 months pregnant and all I wanted was the coast to coast medal haha.
The fourth time I registered for a half marathon was for Disney World’s 2018 Wine & Dine. That race was my 2nd half marathon! It was a blast because I did all races that weekend (5K, 10K, and half).
The fifth time I register for a half marathon is for this upcoming race. I’m thrilled to run in Chicago for 13.1 miles. I love all the city views. There’s always something new. If I could go back to registration day, I would have probably registered for a half marathon in May instead. I’m worried it will rain on race day. Wish me luck!
Goal for 3rd half marathon
I’ve ran my first two half marathon in about the same time (3 hours 45 minutes). The first one I was 5 months pregnant and the second I stopped at almost all the character meet and greets.
My goal for this race is to run it in under 3 hours. I know I’ll beat 3 hours and 45 minutes, so it will automatically be a PR race without characters. 3 hour goal is kind of pushing it for me because I’m a slow runner, but I’m aiming high! Who knows? Maybe I’ll surprise myself.
Runcations are the best
A runcation is when you run a race while on vacation. Those are my kind of vacations! I live an hour away from Chicago,so this will be a mini runcation for me.
Stay tuned for half marathon training updates and more!
When is your next race?
How many states have you run in?
What your PR goal (any distance)?
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My next race is on April 13th in Salt Lake City, so we’ll be doing most of our training at the same time! I wrote about my goals for this race and my other 2 half marathons this year on my New Year’s Goals post: https://runningmybestlife.com/forget-new-years-resolutions/. My PR goal for the next one is 2:10:00…I’m hoping I can hit it since on my first half marathon I ended up walking most of the last 3 miles. I definitely didn’t go long enough on my long runs for my first!
Thanks for reading, Alexis! That’s an awesome PR goal. I look forward to reading about your training since we’ll be training at the same time. You got this!