When I lace up for the Women’s Half Marathon in Nashville September 22, I plan on being ready. It’ll be my second half overall, but the first one for which I am properly trained.

Thanks to Hal Higdon’s training program, I expect to do much better in my second half than I did in my first.

Two weeks ago I started following Hal Higdon‘s Novice 2 training version. I almost signed myself on for the intermediate version because I had a tough time calling myself a beginner. After all, I had run for a couple of years now. Three miles for a while, then I graduated to four and five miles, before hitting six miles and running six miles every day.

Every day, that is, until I ran the Huntsville Half Marathon last November. I ran the first eight and vaguely recall how I completed the last five-point-one. I felt terrible and was stripped of all motivation.

In March, four months later, I was finally inspired to run again, very slowly taking on short distances.  When I committed to the Women’s Half, I promised myself, with my whole heart, that I would do it right.

My first two weeks have been relatively easy, but I know Hal is preparing me for the weeks ahead, culminating with the big 13.1. The coolest part in the Novice 2 training? Two free days! Oh, Hal calls them rest days. But I feel like a kid who gets a day off of school and gets to eat sweet cereal in the morning.

Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays are for shorter runs, with increasingly longer runs on Saturdays and cross-training on Sundays. Until I met Hal, it never occurred to me to take days off from my workouts to allow my muscles to recover. While I wasn’t a beginner in my running, I was a beginner in my thinking.

Today’s cross-training involved walking and the elliptical. It felt great and was much different from my old workouts of running. Just running. Every… single… day.

Tomorrow is a free – I mean, rest – day. And I will rest with all my heart, knowing I will do the same on days that call for action!