Restarting the Training Plan

With the Blue Ridge Relay coming up in a little over a month, I am now back into my structured training program, courtesy of the SmartCoach tool on Runnersworld.com. I had initially started to train in June, but I had to take a bit of a break from it for a few weeks, for good reason.

About a month ago, Ben and I found out we were pregnant, and with that knowledge, I stopped doing tempo runs and long runs. Basically, I just did shorter runs of 4-6 miles at an easy pace, and I did this more to stay active rather than with any kind of racing goal in mind. Unfortunately, our pregnancy ended in a miscarriage a little over a week ago, at the 8-week mark.

So now I am building back up to pace and mileage in anticipation for the relay. However, I will say that my goals are a bit different with this race. Firstly, I've decided not to train as hard as I have in the past for the half-marathons. This is due to a couple factors; the heat and humidity of Chapel Hill in the summer and the short time left until the race. Secondly, this is a team effort, and I am running with people of all ability levels, and so I really just want to have fun with my teammates and enjoy the experience. So I don't think I'll be doing any more long runs over 10 miles for a while, although I still need to do tempo runs and maybe some speed workouts to keep up my pace. But running hilly terrain is probably one of the best things I can do right now, given that the race is in the mountains. Well, they don't call this place "Chapel Hill" for nothing!