Hi Everyone!

Hope you are all settling back into your routines well now that the kids are back in school. I don’t have any kids of my own, but it never “officially” feels like the new year has started until everyone is back in school!

The gym has been a little bit busier than usual, but not NEARLY as busy as it usually is in the month of January! I hope that all of those Debbie Downer newscasters that keep encouraging people to “start small” with their resolutions and take a walk around the block instead of joining the gym haven’t scared people away….I’m all for realistic goals (he he), but sometimes you really just need to dive in head first and go for it!! If you’re on the fence, I couldn’t possibly say enough good things about the gym – I really encourage you to be brave and go for it!!!

So I am finally back into my full teaching schedule for the new year (and the new Group Exercise schedule period that runs from January – April!), but I have yet to get back into my “full” triathlon training schedule. I’ve been running regularly, but my bum hasn’t been anywhere near a bike seat since December 23rd, and I haven’t been in the pool since before I got really sick back in early December.

Sigh 😦

Truth be told – I’m so totally freaked out about going back in the pool because I had this sneaking suspicion that I got that awful flu from the pool!!! Every time I think about going in, my skin just crawls!!!

The way I’ve set up my training year, I’ve kind of front-loaded it with running. I have the Chilly Half Marathon coming up in early March, and then the Around the Bay 30K Road Race in late March….and that kind of takes me right into bike season. I’ve elected Matt’s brother Neil to be my “crisis alert” and tell me when the absolute “drop dead date” is for getting my butt onto a REAL bike and getting on the road.

He says March…but I’m sure that’s a “soft” March…I’m sure April would be fine…….:)

Anyways, I’ve been trying to get myself organized with my running, and actually follow some sort of a training plan (I know, crazy right? Who is this girl?), which is actually hard because I feel like running most days and I have to be really strict with myself to only run on my designated days so I don’t over-do it with the high impact stuff.

I was reading John Stanton’s “Running” book, and looking at the training plans that they recommend for Half Marathons and for full Marathons as well. I got myself all worked up into a tizzy because they insist that you need to follow a 5 day a week running plan, including hills, speed work, intervals, and long slow distance runs (or LSD, which I think is also some sort of crazy-ass halucinogen drug….on a side note). I started diligently doing up an Excel spreadsheet which had me running 5 days a week and doing hill workouts and speed workouts and LSD’s (he he), but then ran into a bit of a brick wall when I realized that my plan was totally and completely bat-shit crazy, and had me working out for 3+ hours just about every single day.

I know 3 hours may be peanuts for some people, but keeping in mind that my only goal for the Ironman is to not die, it’s too much for me. Sorry.

I found myself falling into the old trap again where I pitt my classes against my running, instead of trying to get them to work together.

So I stopped the madness, and went back to the drawing board, remembering the golden rule that is kind of the backbone of my entire triathlon training year: an hour in the studio is NOT an hour wasted. An hour in the studio is a step closer towards the end goal (you know, not dieing).

See, working together is a beautiful thing.

I figure I need to get two runs per week in, religiously, every single week, from now until the Chilly Half Marathon. One short run, and one long run. So my plan is to do just that, one 5km run every week, and one increasingly long run every weekend. I’ve been doing my 5K’s on Wednesday nights before my BodyPump class and the plan is to do my long runs on Friday night after work.

My first “long” run is going to be this Friday night, and I’m scheduled to do 10K. 12K the following Friday, and so on until I get to 18K in 4 weeks. Once I get to 18, the plan is to see how I’m feeling, maintain the 18, or reduce the mileage slightly leading up to the race, and give myself one week to kind of “cool it” or “taper” as the fancy running folk say!! 🙂

I know what you’re thinking.

THAT’S IT?! That’s the “big, fancy” training plan that took you two weeks to come up with??

And the answer is a big, resounding, YES! This is it! And it feels good, it feels sane, and maintainable, and I’m actually excited about it, not dreading it! I’ll keep you posted, but so far this has been working really well for me, so I’m hopeful that I’ll be able to keep it up all the way to the end of Around the May in late March.

So tell me – how is YOUR training going??? What does your training plan look like for your big events?? Are you a believer in cross-training, or are you all sport specific??? Talk to me Goose!

Have a great evening everyone 🙂

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