The picture isn’t my prettiest, but yesterday officially marked the end of week 4 of my half marathon training. While I’m still 8 weeks away from the big day, I’ve also realized how far I’ve come in the month since I started.

The first time I stepped back on the treadmill, I couldn’t even make it through a full mile of running. I suppose that’s what I get for thinking I could do a half marathon when I hadn’t actually worked out in a solid year. There’s still a good amount of walking happening, but yesterday I ran 2 miles straight through, and ended up running 3.75 of my 5 total miles. Even with the walking, I wrapped up my whole 5 miles in just barely under an hour (59 minutes and 38 seconds, to be exact), keeping me nicely on pace for our starting corral time of 2 hours and 30 minutes.

My cousin has decided to take my sister’s spot, and um, I forgot she used to be a real runner. Real runner, like her first training run the other day was “only” 4.5 miles at my best pace per mile on a good day. So this should get interesting.

Luckily, I’ve made another running buddy who’ll be running with us. Like me, she’s just in it for the experience, so our goal is simply to have fun and cross the finish line. Regardless of our pace or our finish time, I know the three of us are going to enjoy the adventure.

My Go-Dry seamless long-sleeve and compression capris are the remaining items I snagged from my trip to Old Navy a couple weeks ago. I’m still just as in love with the performance, and I stepped a bit outside of my comfort zone with the bold pattern of these pants. I also had to break down and get an “expandable waist pack belt” to carry my inhaler and epi with me while running. Let’s be real though, it’s a fanny pack.

The real stars of the wardrobe show are my new running shoes. I was really trying to get through my training using my old shoes, but last weekend’s training left my feet hurting so badly, I had to spend the rest of the weekend in sneakers. I thought I was ok by Monday…until I tried to do my run Monday after work. An abbreviated run and trip to our local running store, The Blue Mile, later, I learned the searing pain in the balls of my feet and the lightning bolts going up my shins to my knees were a sign that my old shoes had had enough. Turns out, even though I hadn’t been putting in this kind of mileage over the past 4 years, the shoes had still aged and broken down. I knew trying to save myself the cost of the shoes could end up costing me a lot of future pain, so I bit the bullet and invested in these babies, and boy am I glad I did. These Mizuno Wave Enigmas are honestly the most comfortable shoes I’ve ever worn in my life, and running in them feels soooo much better!

Eight weeks and lots of miles still to go!