It was so exciting to see so many women participating on Sunday at the WOW Team January 8 “kick-off” to the 2012 season.

A number of women will be running the half marathon in Oakland on Sunday, March 25. There are now 11 more weeks to go before race day. This Sunday the long run will be 80 minutes of running, running and walking, or walking; or 8 miles—whichever comes first. This is a slight variation form what the training program says, as we increase our mileage gradually. We will also be practicing hills while training at Lafayette Reservoir.

Photo by Lauren Ganes

Oakland is great about letting us know that there will be 8 aide stations along the Half Marathon course. There will be water and lemon-lime Gatorade at each station. Some stations will also have various flavored Gu gels. It is a good idea to try both the Gatorade and the Gu during your training. If either of these do not agree with you, you’ll know to bring your own supplies on race day.

On your mark, get set, run! GO WOW TEAM!

BRAVO to the women running their first Half Marathon next week, and all the other veteran women running a Half Marathon! You have trained hard and you have already run the distance, so you will have a great Half Marathon. Isn’t it wonderful to be in the taper week?

Marathon training does present challenges. On September 10, Coach Stephanie and I had a great 20 mile run. When we started walking for 10 minutes and then running for 10 minutes after our 20 mile run we were able to continue comfortably. We were quite pleased with our 24 mile journey.

Now, fast forward to this past Friday at Sawyer Camp, very excited about this being the very last long run; however, we did not follow the sound advice we give to others. It was warm, and we ran out 4 miles and came back to refuel. Then, we ran out again and decided along the way to go out 5 miles, not 4. The weather heated up into the 80’s, and both of us were without water on the 5 mile return. We ended up walking over a mile, and thus did not accomplish our pace goal. The heat and lack of liquid had us too depleted to finish the run--so the long run will be early this week. Thank goodness it’s three weeks until race day.

This has to be a good learning experience—make sure you always have extra water on hot days. Luckily this was a training run, because there is water at the aid stations along the race courses. I still bring a small container of liquid to races, so I can have a mouthful whenever I need it.

Lauren is also training to qualify for the Boston Marathon. She's going to make it!

Go Lauren!

Go to http://gowowteam.com/join-us or click on the Join US TAB at the top of this page for details.

Go WOW Team!

Yes, you can run a half marathon. Possibly even a marathon. Go for it!

My gut answer would be YES.

As a professional coach and personal trainer I find that it is possible for the majority of us to complete a half marathon (13.1 miles) or a full marathon (26.2 miles). The issue for most of us comes down to a vision of someone racing across the finish line, built like an Olympian, having just run an entire race in less than 5 minutes per mile!

If this is your expectation, NO, you will probably never complete a half marathon, or a mile, even. But, if you are interested in training to CROSS A FINISH LINE after 13.1 miles of movement (at your pace) then I'm sticking with my original prognosis. YES! Chances are VERY GOOD that YOU can complete a half marathon.

Please enter your questions or comments to this post and let's talk this over. Let's start the dialogue now...

http://www.examiner.com/x-21216-Bay-Area-Womens-Fitness-Examiner http://www.facebook.com/pages/Go-WOW-Team-We-are-The-WOW-Team-Fit-Women-of-the-World/215391204501 http://www.hfpn.com/Back-Office-cid-1449 http://twitter.com/gowowteam

The WOW Team encourages fitness, through running and walking, for all women, all sizes, all ages, all abilites, all year round. Join us!