Post race recovery, and what's next for me

First, happy Ironman World Championships day. I'm excited to check in on the race, especially Jennie Hanson, from Rochester, who is competing.

It's been a relaxing week of laziness following the Wine Glass Marathon. I haven't run at all, and haven't done anything outside classes and dog walking.

I did cycling just two days after my race, and spent the class pedaling with no or little resistance on the bike. I think this really helped my recovery, allowing the blood to start flowing without impact or pressure.

Tomorrow I'm going to attempt a slow 3 or 4 miles followed by yoga and maybe a half hour swim.

Things will be changing for me. I have accepted a job in the Albany office with Capital New York, which has recently become an arm of Politico. More on that in coming days.

I'm back! And reassessing

I've been a bad blogger, but something is keeping you folks clicking, I'm sitting pretty at 723 hits a little more than halfway through the month.

Like half the population, I made some pretty lofty goals at the beginning of 2012. And, like half the population, it's halfway through February and I've pretty much abandoned them.On a positive note, the gym isn't crowded anymore!

I think I'm going to steal an idea from a friend, and take goal setting on a monthly basis instead of yearly. So, I'm going to come up with a post of three goals to accomplish in March, and think small.

Thanks to an inability to keep myself healthy, my training for the Pig has been incredibly rocky. Because of some side effects of one of the medicines I was on, my weight loss efforts have also been stalled. (The jeans are a little tighter today. Prednisone, I hate you.) But not all is lost! I'm still on track for the full, and it doesn't look like I'll have to abandon my time goal, either.

Here's my weekly mileage for the year thus far:

Every time I've fallen back, my gut reaction has been to panic and overtrain the next week. I've had some calf issues this week, so I know that needs to stop. With three miles today and 14 tomorrow I'll be at 26 for the week, a respectable jump. I took a week off from lifting, due to a nasty cold, and time constraints kept me from my routine yesterday, so I'm a little behind in that respect.

So where have I been? I'm still running, still teaching, still writing. I may start posting some of my class profiles, just for kicks.

And I completed the Granville Winter Run Sunday with an awesome time (not as awesome as last year). Look forward to a race report on that... soon(ish).

I will be a better blogger :)

Two weeks in: Holy hills!

Weekly update post on the 2012 goals! This week had it's ups and downs, was really crazy but I survived!

Goal #1 - 4:10 at the Pig: This week I took a big and necessary step toward this goal -- I registered for the race! I secretly thought about wimping out and doing Cleveland instead, but now I'm committed!

Training went very well this week! I did my second tempo run, then did hill repeats on Thursday. I missed MIT Saturday due to crummy weather, so as an added bonus I ran more hills Sunday during my 10 mile run! Since I did most of my long run solo (Brandie came with for the first 4), I sped up and averaged out at 9:47. I don't know if that's a good or bad thing. I ran a total of 27 miles for the week (plus one walking).

Elevation profile of Sunday's run

Scheduled miles for this week (slightly modified, of course!)
Today: 4 miles easy
Tuesday: 6.5 miles tempo
Wednesday: 4 miles easy
Thursday: 4 miles hills
Friday: Swim
Saturday: 10 miles
Total: 28.5

Goal #2 -- Train for a triathlon: Except for spin classes, no movement on this one this week!

Goal #3 -- Lift more: I've resigned to the fact that I only really have time to lift twice a week, but I'm getting that in!

Goal #4 -- Learn to teach something new: Nothing here, either.

Goal #5 -- Weigh 120: Had several missteps this week. I'm back on track now!


Goal #6 -- Increase blog traffic: Traffic is down this month, way down :( Debuting a new feature tonight -- Music Mondays!

One week down, 51 to go!

MIT on Saturday.

I set a bunch of goals for 2012, and one tool I want to do to meet them is a weekly update post. While I won't make progress toward each one every week, I think it will help keep me on track!

4:10 at the Pig: I had an awesome running week, just awesome. I logged 23 miles, and managed to get some hills in with Brandie on Monday.

I took each of these runs easy since I was recovering from a stomach bug (ie too much food at Christmas!). I'll be back to more hills and tempo runs this week. (Tempo Tuesday!)

On Saturday I ran 10 miles, more than my scheduled 7. MIT was phenomenal, there were so many people. It was a great day and I was just feeling good!

After the rest of the group split off another 10:30 and I sped up. Average pace ended up 10:11 with a sub-9 last mile. Next week I think I'm going to run with the 10s!

This week I'm going to shoot for a total of 25 or 26 miles. I modified the weekly schedule a bit to do this:
Monday: 4 easy
Tuesday: 5 tempo, lift
Wednesday: 4 easy, spin
Thursday: 3 hill repeats, spin, lift
Friday: spin, swim
Saturday: 10 at 10, lift if I have some juice left

Other goals:

Train for a triathlon: Didn't get to swim this week. My goal for the moment is to swim on Fridays, but I had to teach spin then lift last Friday so there just wasn't time.

Lift more: I started the second phase of the New Rules of Lifting for Abs. This phase is tough... planks + rows, offloaded squats, burpees!! With my running and spinning schedules I may only get to it twice a week, but I'm going to stick with it!

Learn to teach something new: Probably there won't be any movement on this one for awhile, but I will get to it this year!

Get down to 120 pounds by the Pig: I rocked this one out this week! Lost 2 pounds and tracked my food everyday!

Increase blog traffic: I started a new feature, Foodie Fridays, which I hope will get me a few more hits!

Goals for Saturday and beyond

It’s my first 10K and I’m ready. I’ve covered up to 8 miles on the completely flat Licking County bike trail, 7 miles at the completely hilly Dawes Arboretum. Cranked the treadmill all the way up to 10 grade, to the point where someone even asked me if I had a death wish.

I really want to finish in under an hour but I know better than to set that goal. My training pace is a 10 minute mile. My last 5k pace was an 8:25 mile but that’s mostly because I sprinted the last half mile trying to get third place (I did). BUT! It’s rough terrain and I don’t know how bad these hills are. And last year only three of 15 women in my age group beat an hour. So I’m going to be good and set my goal at 66 minutes. Moreover, my goal is just to run the whole thing, no stops.

I keep telling myself that I’m going to wait until the race is over before plotting out the next steps. I’m going to take a few days off. But I just can’t stop myself from looking ahead. There’s a 10 mile race at Salt Fork state park Dec. 4. Or I could just try to improve my 10K time? Or my 5K time? My mind wanders and then suddenly I’m on Fleet Feet’s site again!

One step at a time!

Hocking Hills Indian Run site

Hocking Hills Indian Run map

Hocking Hills Indian run 2009 results