Oops, I did it again...

I'm not entirely sure how this keeps happening, but I am apparently running a half marathon on September 28th. It's the Hogsback Half Marathon which benefits Running for Rescues. I was pretty sure after the bitter cold NYC half in March I was all done with long distance running. But I cave easily to peer pressure. Also, it's fair season in the Northeast which means I'll be eating a lot of garbage. Since I'm not willing to give that up, running seems like a necessary evil. Plus, check out what we get for finishing the race:

This is the finisher medal!

This is a mock up of the t-shirt, except the actual shirt is a tech shirt AND long sleeved! Whoa.

As a result of this rash decision, I am on the accelerated training plan. It's similar to last year's when I decided semi-last minute to run the Niantic Bay half. Thus, this past week was my first of six weeks of race training. Three miles with the girls (and some pups!) on Tuesday:

We ran 4 together on Thursday minus Katie who had to be at work at 6 am (I'm not sure how that's legal). And then we split up into pairs for our weekend 6 miler since we had conflicting schedules. I did my 6 with Katie (visit her blog) on Saturday. Part of our run was in the woods since it was 2 PM, sunny, and pretty warm. The shade was well received! Also since we're accelerating our training, it's nice to have an excuse for not being fast (uneven terrain, lots of hills) other than just being out of shape...
Ideally, when training for a long distance race, I like to run either 3, 4, or 5 miles twice during the week (most often a 3 and a 4), and then a long run during the weekend. Each week the long run gains a mile. But since we are a little behind on our training, this time around our long run will gain 1.5 miles each week.
Hopefully this week goes as smoothly as last! Do you have a race coming up? How's your training going?