Running my first half-marathon

I spent Jun-Dec 2010 in Dallas, Texas and for Thanksgiving I decided to enroll to the Turkey trot with my wife and my good buddy Jim.
It was a 5Km small race and it gave me the virus of running.
I completed it in 29min which is not too bad.

The atmospher was great, lot’s of people cheering, everyone happy, I loved it.
I thought I should get to a longer distance in order to enjoy the same feeling for a longer period. How about a 10K? Let’s make it 21K… Half Marathon.

Before the race I said to myself that I probably wouldn’t run a marathon ever… but I have to say I am seriously considering it.

So how did I prepare for that. From a non-believer to a pretty ok half-marathon runner.

The Genes

I must say that I probably have some kind of head start compared to most beginners because my dad has been running for his entire life and he took me with him when he was running. I was just following with my bike and playing around. So it’s in the family. But I always thought i would never run because I simply found it boring.
The Turkey trot proved my wrong. I like it.

The training calendar

About 12 weeks before the Helsinki City Run, the local half-marathon, I registered and started my training.
I found a template of training program online and I made some adjustments and started to follow it.
the thing is, I don’t only run, I also play rugby with my club and with the Finland National Team. So I needed to lose weight but I still had my fitness program to follow. And these are not exactly compatible.
Rugby requires strength and muscles and explositivity.
Running require to be light and lean muscles and stamina.
One helps the other of course, stamina is excellent for rugby, but running intervalls instead of long distance for example would be much more useful.

Anyway I made my choice: