Training for the Illinois Half Marathon:Week 1

You guys, I’m training for my first ever half marathon! I want to include you on my journey! Also I think it would be great to be able to look back at this if I decided to train for another race and compare my progress.

Let’s first start off with when I decided I wanted to run a marathon. At the beginning of November 2018 I decided enough was enough. I was tired of feeling gross from poor diet choices and hating my body. So it was time to take action! I got my booty right into gear with hitting the gym 2-3 times a week in the mornings. I was motivated more than ever to not only feel healthy but to mentally and physically be healthy. The prep for going to the gym was probably the hardest! With working two jobs I had to be on top of my game all around. This meant hauling three bags and preparing three meals a day, a majority of the week. I’m great with routines as long as I set myself up for success, which I made sure to do! Having a food addiction, of course, is where this all stemmed from. Remember back to my Slim Chickens and A&W story.

Thanksgiving was coming up and I mentally prepared myself to back track some. I was extremely proud of myself for only putting a couple pounds of water weight on! Getting back to the gym wasn’t as hard as I thought either, so my enthusiasm continued! Then came Christmas. I had 11 days off of work so I really wanted to cherish as much time as I could with my family. There aren’t gyms out in the corn fields guys, in case you were wondering. I did my best to not let myself be discouraged and enjoy my time off.

While I had some time off work I got the chance to catch up with one of my good friends. You guys know those friends that you can bear your soul with and be a complete hot mess, and they’ll never judge you? That’s my friend M. We both have the tendency to hold everything in until we’re about to erupt, so girls nights do us well! That night we were sharing stories from the last couple months, while getting our venting on, when I jokingly said we should run a half marathon. The longer we chatted, we came to realize that neither one of us had ever really committed to something and stuck to it. With a new year approaching we were determined to change! We began our google search to find the best suited race for us. After establishing what date was too far away that we’d probably give up and which ones were too close for how out of shape we were, we chose The Christie Clinic Illinois Half Marathon. That was about 3 weeks ago and I still have exciting jitters!

With all that excitement, I started my training on 12/31/2018. As i talked about earlier, I had got back into my gym flow in November. I would consider myself a runner, simply because I hate lifting and pretty much avoid it. I knew that the first week couldn’t be that hard because I mainly had been doing cardio the previous month. What i wasn’t prepared for was my muscles yelling at me from putting in more miles a week than what I was used to. My appetite went from eating breakfast when I felt like it, to I’m starving and have to eat right now. With having health issues in the past few years, you’ll hear me talk about how well I know my body. Meaning that I understand my limits and when my physical body is trying to tell me something. Throwing an eating addiction into the mix just makes things all kind of crazy. It is my first time truly training to run a half marathon so I know it will take time to adjust not only to the the running aspect but to properly fueling my body with what it needs. Here’s to week 1 in the books! This means the next weeks are going to be cake, right? Oh I sure hope!

Truly Yours,

Jer❤