The summer solstice officially happens at 5:16pm today.  Yes, I actually looked that up.  What kind of nerd would I be without fact-checking?  So, how are you ringing in the first day of the summer season?  I made some delicious iced coffee (a fit blogger staple it seems), scheduled a skin check with a new dermatologist, and am heading to Philly Power Yoga this evening.  I’m really excited to be going back there as I had such a fantastic experience with the first class.  Seriously, if you live in or near Philly, check them out!  They offer a first class free on their site and have tons of times offered.  You seriously cannot lose!

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Yesterday I completed an easy 2 mile run to kick of training for my second half marathon.  The first half I ran was completed using this training plan.  I felt it worked well as it was easy to follow, included rest and cross-training days, and wasn’t overly demanding.  I finished faster than my goal time, and was quite happy.  This time, however, I’m going with a different plan as I want to set a new PR.  I consulted my lovely little Droid phone and downloaded the SmartCoach app from Runner’s World.  You can also use the same application on their website if you do not have a smart phone.

It takes into account the distance you are training for, how hard you want to train, and the recent time and distance of your last race.  I am excited to use this as it includes tempo runs and speedwork, something I did not do with my first half marathon.  I am also planning to incorporate hills as that was also missed and it seems they love to throw hills at you towards the end of a race.  I think I’ll do a weekly recap of the training plan on Sundays (gives me a set topic to blog about bc I am uncreative, hah).  The race I am training for is the ING Rock ‘n’ Roll Half in Philly.  If you are also running this, let me know and perhaps we can meet for runs and/or on the day of the event!  :)