Half Marathon time is here

It's officially here folks.  It's time for my fall half marathon.   It seems weird to say that, that it's time for MY fall half marathon. I say it like it's normal. Like this is how it's been forever. It's crazy to think this is only my second year of doing half marathon's.  Only my third half marathon. 

Training for this half marathon was interesting.   I signed up for the race in April, during my 9th pregnancy month. I knew I wanted to do it and I knew that if I signed up for it I would be determined to train during zombie mode.  I ran this half marathon last year while I was pregnant so I had high hopes of making a very strong come back.

As you've noticed from reading my past posts, I've hard a hard time of things mentally in terms of my running.  So I knew training for this one was going to be super hard. It's very hard for me to do big races like this, I have a lot of self doubt.  Training for the fall half last year was easier for me because I had a training partner. This year I was solo.

Training started out pretty good. I knew I would have to work on getting mileage back up and my body back in shape. I also knew I wanted to PR (get a personal record) for this race so I needed to work on speed.    Things started out well and then all hell broke loose.  I started to have major health issues.

I would get a mile or two into a run and throw up.  If I didn't throw up, I felt like it and would stop but would soon throw up anyway.     I was having a hard time eating.  I would be shaky and eat but then an hour later I would be hungry again. It got so bad that by the afternoon I was soo tired of eating and food was so unappetizing, because I was eating so much, that I didn't want to eat.  I would start to eat and want to throw up.  I was having a lot of other health issues as well.

I went to the Dr. and was told to cut way back on my running. I was doing way too many workouts and my body couldn't handle it along with the breast feeding.  I tried to tell my Dr. that what I was doing was normal for a runner in training however she didn't believe me.  She felt I was putting too much stress on my body. I convinced her to have my thyroid levels checked as I've had thyroid issues for awhile.

I did cut way back on workouts however I'm happy to report it was my thyroid. I had almost every single symptom of the thyroid issues I have. 

For at least a month I could barely run, wasn't doing any distance.  So I changed my plan for the half from getting a time PR to just finishing it. Then I started to feel a bit better.  I'm not 100% better but in a better place than I was.  I started to be able to hit distance, I started to run a bit faster. 

So now I'm back on track to hoping the training has paid off and I'll be able to PR this race.  No I couldn't train like I wanted to, but I was able to get in some decent workouts.  I'm nervous. I'm worried.  This race is so much more than just a race for me. I just hope I can finish it and be happy with my performance. 

Stay tuned for a race recap!