Try something new.

Because of the holiday, I admit it, I've been eating rather poorly. Too much carbs, too many sweets, to much alcohol, and too much sitting on my ass.  Friday I downloaded a mobile app call miCoach from Adidas. It uses the GPS in your phone to coach you based on your pace. If you pay for their proprietary heartrate monitor and cadence foot pod, you can get coaching based on those values.  Adidas says that is a more reliable method, but I'd rather wait and see how the 'free' coaching works.
I told the app I wanted to train for a half marathon. It sent me out on a 12 minute run, to calculate what my upper and lower pace limits are for 4 zones. This program trains me to subjectively cue myself into how fast I'm running and how I'm feeling during the run. The 12 minute assessment run started me out running at a level '4' from 1-10. Then, it progressed me from 5-9  over the remaining time. It was not easy. I ended up not being able to finish,  because I was running my 9 out of 10 pace like a 10. Or an 11. I was exhausted.  The program told me that my high end red zone pace (the highest zone) was a 6:30! WTF?  I can't ever imagine running that fast for any length of time. But, I'm trusting that experienced people have written this app and know what they are doing. I told the program I would run 4 times a week.

I missed the first 20 minute  run on Saturday, as my parents and daughter left, and I spent the day cleaning and doing laundry. Oh, and eating leftovers. That includes pie.

Today, Sunday, I was ready to try the 40 minute run. It had me run in my blue zone for 5 minutes,  my green zone for 30 minutes, and my blue zone again for 5 minutes. I did not finish this workout either. I dressed warm enough for 40 degree temperature with a brisk northeast wind - but I fatigued too easily. During my first blue zone trial, it told me I was going too fast, into the green zone. During the green zone, I had to be reminded to speed up, several times. I had to stop and walk at least 4 times. The coach told me I had slowed, and needed to pick up my pace. It was very helpful, and I was starting to get the feeling at least for the 'zones'. Ultimately,  I had to stop at 23 minutes. I barely made it halfway through. I'm chalking it up to eating very poorly all week. That's what I'm hoping, anyway.
I ran 44% of my training run, 2.54 miles.  It tells me I will get better over time. I'm keeping an open mind.
My next run is a 20 minute run again in blue and green zones, on Tuesday. But I hear we will be getting our first significant snow fall on Tuesday. I wish I had the money to buy that treadmill.

TPP