#WeRunHelsinki Part 1 - Preparing for Helsinki Half Marathon with the Help of Running School

Laura is preparing for Helsinki Half Marathon with the help of Runner's High running school. In this article series we follow Laura's training towards her goal. 

Part 1 New Year, new goals

I ran my first half marathon last June. The idea of participating in a running event after a while came from my colleagues and the decision to participate was made about two weeks before the run. I´ve never been much into planning, so the decision to run was made without any preparation for the half marathon. I think I put my sneakers on once before the run to make sure that they still fit me and luckily they did. They were not in their best shape, but I thought they would still work for the run. It´s not all about the equipment right?

Luckily running is not a new thing for me as I’ve been running since I was 8 years old, but always with a focus on shorter distances, mainly 400 m hurdles, which is not the easiest distance, but have to say that a half marathon is a hundred times tougher, at least it was for me! Before doing 400m hurdles, I’ve also run some longer distances.

I managed to compete on the Finnish national level for about three years, always being the second or third best of my age group until I fell ill, which weakened the capacity of my lungs, made the recovery very slow and affected my immune system so that I got sick very easily if I trained just a bit too hard. After two years with numerous doctor’s visits, no one knew exactly what was wrong, most likely a sum of many little things. So I decided to focus on other things in life, as track & field was taking up most of my time during at that point. 

It still feels weird to go to the track, but I have continued to lead a sporty and active life. After a little break, I put my sneakers back on, but this time the distance was slightly longer. I knew it was going to take a while until I recover from the half marathon, but as I did not compete anymore it did not matter so much and I´ve always been up for new challenges. The journey was really tough at some points, but the feeling after crossing the finish line was one of the best feelings in a long time. I don´t know if it was the feeling of crossing the finish line or of giving it all while running that made me feel so good, but I decided straight away that I definitely want to run a half marathon again.

Okay, I got to admit that the feeling of running a half marathon again did not come straight away after crossing the finish line. The feeling was completely the opposite, but after recovering a while I was convinced I wanted to run it again. After the half marathon, I didn’t run for a while, but continued doing other sports, such as dancing and circuit training to improve and maintain my basic fitness level. This way it was easier for me to maintain the heart rate at a lower level.

This spring the preparation for the half marathon is going to be more thorough and will be carried out with the help of professional coaches. At the end of January, I am going to join the Runner´s High running school which contains 17 training sessions with the group and coaches, 4 lectures about running, nutrition etc., analysis of running technique and constructing a training plan for the whole spring according to your own goals.

Training with a goal in mind while going to school or working is challenging as you always need to remember to leave time for recovery. This is even more challenging alone, but with a coach and training friends you can focus on the training and improving yourself. Your coach and training friends will give you a lot of extra energy when you are not feeling at your best. With a good plan, some self-discipline and the right attitude many things are possible!

Here we go then, New Year and new exciting goals for the spring. This article series is going to follow my training for the half marathon with the Runner´s High team. The next article will be published on Friday 22^nd of January after a few weeks of training and once the master plan for the spring is ready. Let´s run Helsinki!