Time To Share!

After a lot of thought, I believe I have decided on some goals for myself for the remainder of the year and the first quarter of 2015. Over the past two weeks, I had grand ideas, ditched them, had more grand ideas, ditched them again… I really have a hard time making up my mind! This is mostly because I don’t want to overwhelm myself mentally or physically. But I am at a place right now where I feel really solid with my main goals and how I will reach them.

So now I will take my own advice and share with you my goals and my plan to reach them. I will continue to update you on how I am (hopefully!) sticking with it!

Goals for the remainder of December and January, 2015:

Goal #1: Recommit to lifting lower body and in the process, get stronger leg muscles and more visible definition in my quads and hamstrings.

I know my calves are a lost cause (genetically, I just do not have cut calf muscles), but I miss the days before my knee surgery when I had really nice definition in my legs- a product of consistent lower body strength training. At the time, my legs were also stronger than they ever were. I wasn’t squatting my bodyweight or anything like that, but for me I was doing the best I could. Obviously, surgery and more recent IT band issues have forced me to cut back on lower body considerably, and as I result, my legs have gotten weaker and they look like blobs of jelly. Blobs of jelly may be a bit dramatic, and I know I am being a little critical of myself, but slowly, I want to get back to where I was.

The plan: 2 lower body strength training workouts every 9 days and a continuation of my commitment to stretching and foam rolling.

Goal #2: Maintain a basic level of speed via tempo runs and intervals without getting injured or overtaxing my body.

I worked really hard during 10k training and I would like to maintain at least some of that speed without feeling the need to keep pushing every week. Meaning, I envision most of my tempo runs being something like this: 2 mile warm up, 2 mile tempo, 1 mile cool down. As for intervals, for the first several weeks, I would like to do no more than 4 interval repeats- probably 400s. I want to maintain, not build, so I can take care of my body but still sneak a little speed into my training.

The plan: 1 tempo run and 1 interval workout every 9 days.

Goal #3: Run the Jacobus 5 miler- part of the York Road Runner’s Club Winter Series (https://usroadrunning.com/doc/20141006195649.pdf)

As long as it is not icy, I would like to run this event. I do not have a goal pace in mind as of yet since I am not going to be going “all out” on speed training. I barely ever run races, but I would like to run them more so I don’t feel as nervous and like I have to prove something every single time I pin on a race bib.

The plan: Follow the training cycle I have designed for myself in which each “week” is 9 days long.

My “weeks” will look like this:

Lift Back/Legs

Lift Chest/Shoulders

Tempo Run

Easy Run

Lift Back/Leg

Lift Chest/Shoulders

Speed work

Easy Run

Easy Run

I am so excited to again have something to guide my training!

Looking onward at the next couple months....

Goals for February-March, 2015:

Goal #1: Race the Capitol Area 10 Miler on March 29^th.

This race is a very popular one in the Harrisburg region and is practically in my backyard. Much of the route is the same of the 10k I just ran- City Island, Harrisburg Riverfront, Green Belt pike path, and a killer bridge that will probably make me die of boredom! I have no goal pace in mind yet, I will have to think about that.

The Plan: No plan is set in stone yet! I will share that with you at the beginning of February! I can only focus on so much at once right now!

I'm really excited to recommit myself to strengthening my lower body as well as tackle the 10 miler! I know there are bumps and kinks in every training plan, and don't worry, I will share the good, the bad, and the ugly with you!

Tell me about a short term goal you have and a long term goal!