Re-evaluation...

The things I've accomplished in the last year have amazed me.  On November 21, '10 I ran my first half marathon.  In less than a year since then I've run several more halfs, a full marathon, a 27 mile ultra, a 50k and next weekend will run my second full marathon.  All in less than a year.  Crazy, I never would have dreamed I could do all of that.  It hasn't come easy though, I've pushed myself very hard to do these things.  My 50k last weekend obviously took a lot out of me.  Not so much physically, my body has felt pretty good ever since the race.  Mentally and emotionally it took a toll though.  That, along with the fact that I have a marathon next weekend, has led to my lightest week running in a very long time.  So far this week I've run one time for 5 miles.  I'll run at some point today as well, but I'll probably only do about 6 or 7 miles.  That will make this my lowest mileage week this year out side of the first couple weeks coming back from my stress fracture.

This week has actually been pretty great without all of the running.  Don't get me wrong, I clearly love to run, but we all need a break from time to time.  The lack of miles this week has given me a chance to work on other things and think about the goals I'd set for 2012.  My original plan was pretty aggressive, but that's how I tend to do things.  The plan was to do the Louisiana Marathon in January, the 44 mile Brew To Brew race in April, then get my first 50 miler at the Blue Springs 50/50 in the fall.  Like I said, doable but aggressive.  Well, this week I've been thinking about those goals and I've reevaluated.

I want to focus on improving where I'm at now before I continue to try to to take the next step.  More than likely 2012 will be a year without "firsts", I no longer plan to do Brew To Brew or a 50 miler.  My focus now will be on improving my overall fitness, my half marathons and my full marathons.  I'm still running the Louisiana Marathon in January (it's already paid for), then instead of focusing on Brew To Brew I'm going to do a full 16 week training plan for the Lincoln Marathon on May 6th.  I want to try to do several half and full marathons through the spring and summer, then probably do the 50k at Blue Springs again in the fall.  I would also like to do some more trail running and in the fall I'd like to do a trail marathon.  I have set a goal of at least 1,500 miles next year.

When I say I want to improve on these, I'm not necessarily talking about improving my times.  That will probably be a natural effect of working on them, but by improving I mean I just want to get more comfortable with them.  A big part of that is improving my overall fitness.  Let's face it, I can run really far but I am WAY out of shape in general.  I was very good about doing functional weight training and various types of cross training up until late January when I started having some ITB issues in my training for the Napa Valley Marathon.  At that point I stopped doing a lot of things thinking I didn't want to risk injury with my first marathon coming up.  I fully planned to get back to it all after Napa.  I took a few light weeks after Napa and just as I was starting to get back to working out again I had my stress fracture.  After losing almost 8 weeks of activity due to the fracture I was losing my mind as well.  Once I was cleared to run again I had every intention of getting back to weight & cross training as well, but it just felt SO good to run again.  I couldn't get myself to do anything but run.  I need to get my fitness back under control if I want to improve in these races.

I have a great plan set up to get back to it and keep variety in my workouts.  Leading up to the Pilgrim Pacer Marathon next weekend I've been getting up in the morning and doing various P90X discs that won't take too much out of me during these taper weeks but will help start getting me back on track.  All year I've been stopping and starting two different workout programs, P90X and the Javorek plans from JCCC's weight training class.  I haven't managed to stick to either but I like them both, so I set out a plan for next year to incorporate them both.  Starting after the marathon I will go through the full 91 day P90X program.  Once I complete that (last day will be 2/11/12) I will start the first of the Javorek plans.  Those are 3 day per week functional weight training plans.  To make it a full week program like P90X I'm going to do the Javorek workouts Mon, Wed, Fri along with Ab Ripper and do P90X Plyo, Kempo, Yoga and Stretch the other days.  This will take me through 5/19, then I will do another round of P90X then the next Javorek plan.  You get the idea.

This functional training will help me get my weight back down, strengthen my core, improve my stamina, and help get my confidence back up.  This training along with following some running training plans, more trail running, more cycling, etc will help me improve how I am doing at the race distances I am at now before moving on to even bigger distances.  I intend to get back to trying to get to the greater distance goals in 2013.  I'm excited about my 2012 plans now and I know I will be successful and better for it.  Of course, I don't like to wait for the calendar to change to start new goals, so I've already started.  As many of you already know I set up a 21 Day Challenge on Facebook starting on 11/3 and going to 11/23.  In the early months of 2010 these challenges helped me make working out a habit and I hope this will help again.  The challenge is working out at least 30 minutes per day for 21 days straight.  If you miss a day you don't get to make up the time, you start over.  I set it up in hopes that I could get 6 or 10 people to join me so we could keep each other motivated.  I had no idea it would blow up within a few hours to having 134 people, many of whom I don't even know!!!  My side goal for myself within the challenge is that every workday within the challenge I will get up early and workout before going to the office.  If I'm going to manage the workout plans I have along with marathon training I'm going to need to get used to going back to working out in the morning.  I actually love working out before work, but it's hard to get used to being up early again so I'm hoping doing it for three weeks will help make it habit again.  So far, so good.

I have a solid plan with solid goals, now it's time to do the work and make it a reality.  I'm excited for what these plans will do for me both with my running and with my overall fitness.  Let's get to work!!!