To recap: after the successful couch-to-5k-to-10k race of last summer to ward off boredom, running activity slowly tapered off through a variety of reasons, including the seemingly unending winter, such that I didn't run past late October. The half marathon here is on June 1st, and given that it's the next logical step to take from 10k races, it's just about time to start a 10 week program before the day. I hadn't entered a race as I was concerned I might have completely lost all the gains I'd made in stamina last summer, so I'd have to pick a nice day one weekend and see where I was.
Fortunately, the last two weekends were warm enough that I could get out on a Saturday morning for a run along the path by the Bow downtown. The fact that I am now employed again now meant that I could finally buy some colder weather running gear ('warm enough' still means zero celsius at 9am on a Saturday). The legs have not been particularly willing, but I'm glad to report that I can still run half an hour without having to stop, and from last weekend to this I ran another 350m in a fixed half hour on the same course. Ten minute miles are nothing to particularly crow about (I ran the 10k in 8:40 a mile), but at least the stamina is still just about there. Now that I also have access to the Beige Towers exercise room (of which I had no earthly clue until relatively recently), I will be able to do the midweek runs inside in the warm until the weather is better/lighter. The initial target: a half-marathon inside two hours. We'll see if we can get a bit greedier as we go along.
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