Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Goals, Speed Work and Marathons

Sorry, I've been MIA lately.  I've been super busy at work.  Also, sorry for the upcoming, slightly boring, picture less post...I know you are just DYING to read it now!

Goals - I've been doing well with some of my 2013 goals so far.  I've been keeping up with my 30 minutes (minimum) of daily activity each day.  I've also been getting in my water (most days).  I'd like to up my water intake even a little more but as long as I'm getting the 8 glasses that I set my goal as, I'm happy with it.  I have been doing the bare minimum of strength training and really need to work on this.  I have been keeping up with my speed work and my hills, although I may be skipping my speed work day this week. I didn't have it in me yesterday and I can't see it fitting in anywhere else this week. 

Speed work - this seems to be getting easier for me.  I'm not one that really "likes" to run fast.  It's difficult for me to push myself past my comfort zone.  I used to feel like my lungs were going to explode!  It really doesn't feel that way anymore!  I tried a tempo run last Thursday (this was only my second attempt at a tempo run) and it went very well.  I had been talking to Kelly about tempo runs (and speed work in general).  It's nice to talk to someone about it that has more knowledge about it than I do (since I'm a speed work newbie).  I did a short tempo run because I was nervous about doing more miles since it was only my second attempt.  I decided to do 1 mile warm up, 2 miles at tempo, and 1 mile cool down.  The tempo miles I wanted to be between 8:45-8:55.  It turned out that my middle 2 miles were 8:45, 8:46.  I even had to slow down that first tempo mile because I was running too fast.  And I felt pretty good for about 1.5 miles before I started struggling the last 0.5 miles.  I think I can up my tempo miles to 3 miles next time!

Marathons - It's no secret that I was skipping a spring marathon this year to try to work on a few things (speed and weight).  It's also no secret that my plan is to do 2 fall marathons this year.  My reasoning for that is because I won't have to go through 2 separate trainings.  I can use the first one as a training run for the second one (which I'm planning on doing a month later).  It's actually been really difficult to fall into the spring marathon fever which is going around!  But I'm really enjoying not training for one.  I'm still getting in my runs and doing some long runs but I know I won't have to do 16 miles or more any time soon and I really like that.

With all of that said...I signed up for my first fall marathon.  I think it's kind of funny because one of the reasons I wasn't going to do Chicago this year (besides the price increase) was that I didn't want to sign up for a fall marathon in February!  I wanted to wait until later in the year and see how I was doing.  Of course, with all the marathon talk already, I signed up for the Fox Valley Marathon in St. Charles on September 22, 2013.  I knew people did the full last year (as well as the 20 miler) and I hear it's a really nice marathon.  I also know a few people doing it this year.  Also, my cousin lives about 15-20 minutes away so I can spend the night there (since St. Charles is about 1 hr 15 mins from my house).  My only trouble is that I hope it's not going to be too hot!  It's hard to tell with Chicago weather!  I'm still undecided as to my second fall marathon...but I'm leaning towards Columbus or Grand Rapids...more so on Columbus because my brother lives there so it will be free room and board.  That is all subject to change though.

I can't believe I signed up for a fall marathon already.

Lastly...  my parent's signed me up for a gym.  Actually, I belong to Charter Fitness.  For 16 years prior, I belonged to Bally's but when I was marathon training (and I wasn't happy with Bally's), I cancelled my membership.  About 6 months later, LA Fitness bought out Bally's.  My parent's belonged to Bally's as well as was able to change over their membership for their really great rate that they had with Bally's.  I was pretty mad that I had just cancelled my membership, because I would have loved to go to LA Fitness.  After my marathon training was over, I signed up for Charter Fitness because it was cheap and close to home.  They are a basic gym with no pool and only one location has any classes.  For several months now, I have been thinking of switching from Charter to LA Fitness because I love to swim laps and want to train for the triathlon.  My parents, as an early birthday present, signed me up for a year membership with LA Fitness!  I'm so excited!  My mom also worked her magic and got me the rate they currently pay.  I can't wait to go back and incorporate swimming into my cross-training for running.

4 comments:

  1. Glad to hear the speedwork is going well! And that was awesome of your parents to get you the gym membership!

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  2. That's great about the gym membership! Way to go signing up for a fall marathon already! I don't have anything signed up past June at this point. I need to get around to it. No marathon planned for me this year. Tying to get in new race distances. Glad to see you back!

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  3. Congrats on the gym membership! While I am not a great swimmer, I do love to incorporate it until my exercise routine.

    Check your email - I sent you a picture of Lindy's chili I passed by when I was picking up my daughter - isn't that your parents place?

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    1. Sent a reply email Biz! Same restaurant but not one of their locations. What city was that in?

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