Tag Archives: goals

2015 Here We Go!

Posted on by
2

Wow, 2015 is here! I’m kicking things off with a 5k and then heading to Ocean City for a weekend with friends – a great way to start off the year!

One of my Oiselle Secret Santa gifts was the Believe Training Journal (signed by Lauren Fleshman!), so I spent some serious time thinking out and writing down my goals for the year. A great way to keep yourself accountable is sharing your goals, so here goes…

goals1

My 2015 Running Goals:

goals2

  • Qualify for Boston
  • Race the B&A Trail Marathon- it’s a smaller race, so I have a legit shot of coming near the top of the pack for women finishers
  • Break 20 minutes in a 5k (this is my big and scary stretch goal!)
  • Run 2,015 miles in 2015

goals3

What will it take?

  • Consistency – I need to stick to my training plans and get out there and do the work. I also need to stay focused and not let up during my off seasons.
  • Staying healthy – keeping up with stretching, foam rolling and icing will be key. I also need to listen to my body and be smart about when to push the gas and when to take a break.
  • Getting stronger – I need to get in my daily core workouts and hit the weight room, and not just focus on running.
  • Get speedy – lots of speed work and pushing the pace will be required!
  • Schedule and plan – building my runs into my daily schedule and planning ahead will help keep me on track.
  • Pay more attention to nutrition – I can’t expect to produce great results with crappy fuel.
  • Mental toughness – enough said!

Footprints: Monday Morning Recap

Posted on by
Reply

Last week was a tough one and a bit discouraging. I started out the week pretty sick and lost my motivation battling coughing fits while running, so I only ended up getting in four of my six scheduled runs for the week totaling 35 miles. I initially had plans to try to cram those missed runs into this week, but I know better than that and understand it won’t really help – and could even lead to injury. I just need to stick to my plan going forward and stay as healthy as possible.

Here’s the day-by-day breakdown:

Monday: Rest day – not feeling well.

Tuesday: Rest day – not feeling well.

Wednesday: I went to the gym Wednesday night thinking I could hop right back into things and do my speed workout on the treadmill. My warm-up went OK, but I didn’t even make it through one interval before realizing it was not in the cards for the day and put in one of my easy six milers instead.

Thursday: Today was the high point of the week. I had a 6-mile tempo run on tap and got that in en-route to DC for a Christmas lights run with some of my Oiselle teammates. I ran a one mile warm-up along the Mt. Vernon Trail, six miles hard continuing along Mt. Vernon over the 14th Street Bridge onto the Mall, followed by a 1-mile cool down to our meet-up point near the Chinatown metro. Tempo runs in the Hanson’s plan are marathon pace miles. I was admittedly a bit off my goal for these (nearly 20 seconds), but all six were consistent and I felt strong – given the week I had so far I counted this as a win. The best part was what followed – the roughly 4-mile jaunt around DC with the Oiselle girls checking out lights and trees at City Center, the Willard Hotel, the National Christmas tree, the Capitol Building and the Canadian Embassy – so much fun!

Christmas Tree Stop at the Willard

Christmas Tree Stop at the Willard

Friday: I put in 7 easy miles along the Mt. Vernon trail after work before grabbing dinner at Jimmy John’s and making a Wegmans run…not a bad Friday night!

Saturday: After having a lot of trouble sleeping Friday night I got a later than planned start on my Saturday long run and felt like my legs never woke up for this one. I put in my 10 miles though, so I’ll take it and move on to next week!

Sunday: Unplanned rest day. My sore legs and lack of motivation got the best of me today.

Running Goals

Posted on by
5

I do my best, most consistent training when I have concrete goal races and times, so I put my credit card down and registered for my next big race. Putting it in writing makes it more real for me and keeps me accountable, so here goes…

I’m giving a BQ attempt another go this spring. I signed up for the B&A Trail Marathon on March 29 in Annapolis, Maryland. My goal is sub 3:32. I want to give myself a good cushion so that I don’t just qualify, but can actually register to run Boston in 2016 as well. My current PR is 3:37.

Putting a goal like that out there is a bit scary since I’ve failed before, but I am more determined that ever to make it happen. I came just more than two minutes shy at the Niagara Marathon before a humbling race at the Marine Corps Marathon after an injury-riddled training season.

marathon1

IMG_3812

That was a hard blow to take and I took a long marathon break after that race, which involved a lot of sporadic training. Now it’s time to get over and get after it.

I’m going to follow the Hanson’s Plan for the first time. I’ve long been intrigued by this plan and am excited to see how it works out for me. It involves a lot of running on tired legs with six days a week of running. Long runs top out around 16 miles, but the plan is designed to make those 16 milers feel more like the last 16 of a marathon than the first. Most days will be at an easy, conversational pace with weekly track and tempo workouts as well.

The plan is 18 weeks with week one starting on a Thursday, so my training will officially kick off on Thanksgiving! Who couldn’t be thankful for that?! More turkey for me!

Happy New Year!

Posted on by
Reply

And just like that… it’s 2014! Hope everyone had a great holiday season and a fun New Year’s eve. This is going to be a great year for my family with my brother’s wedding in August and mine in October. With a handful of other fun events on the calendar and some great races planned for the year, it certainly looks like it’ll be a busy one.

With everything going on, I know that staying stress-free, or at least as stress-free as possible will be important, so I tried to focus my New Year’s Resolutions for this year around things that help me de-stress.

  • Read more. I always say I wish I had more time to read, yet I’m able to find plenty of time at night to check on social media, so it’s really just about setting priorities. My goal is to read a book a month in 2014.bookcase
  • Socialize more (group workouts). When it comes to working out I work harder and have more fun with group workouts, so I want to try to fit more of that in during 2014.

    Post-workout Group Photo from November Project DC Facebook page

    Post-workout Group Photo from November Project DC Facebook page

  • Get Speedy. I love running fast, so this year is all about shorter races and working on my speed, which I need to keep reminding myself of when I get the itch to sign up for another marathon!fmtrack

What are your resolutions for this year?

In Training: Shamrock Half Marathon

Posted on by
5

After almost two months of my no-plan-training-plan, I must say I’m very excited to be starting a regimented plan again. I know both my body and my mind needed the break as I was pretty burned out after an up and down year of racing. It also gave me the chance to get a whole lot of spinning and strength stuff in that I sometimes let slip when I’m running more often. Still, my motivation was pretty low so I just wasn’t getting out there and running nearly as much as I would have liked, so now it’s time to change that.

I’ll have my race calendar up soon, but my target spring race is the Virginia Beach Half Marathon that is part of the Shamrock Marathon weekend. It’s also the site of an Oiselle team meet-up, so I’m super pumped to get to fly fast with a bunch of my fellow birds!

I’m back to training on my own without a coach, so as usual I’ve been doing obsessive research into the best possible training plans for me for this race. I settled on my old favorite – the Hal Higdon Advanced Half plan. I’m a big fan of Hal’s plans and have had success with them in the past.

Hal Higdon Training Programs

 

While I have a goal of getting in as many of the planned workouts as possible, I also want to make sure I stay flexible. By that I mean a few things including being smart and knowing when my body might need a break as well as not missing out on group workouts/runs because it’s not the exact mileage I have on tap for the day.

In addition to my runs and strength training built into the plan, I’ll be spinning at Revolve when I can fit it in, stretching A LOT and becoming good friends with my foam roller!

I don’t have a goal time for the race yet, but I do have a PR in mind knowing it’s a very flat course. After I have a few more weeks of training under my belt I’ll have an update for you on my race goals.

Have you used the Hal Higdon plans before? How’d it work out for you? What other training plans do you like?

 

 

 

Resolution Check-In

Posted on by
4

During my mini hiatus from blogging last week, I missed my usual beginning-of-the-month resolution check-in. I swear I was just writing those resolutions and now the end of the year is just about here. Crazy!

I didn’t hit everything I was hoping for, but overall it was a pretty good year filled with a lot of fun races, a couple PRs and a couple more challenging ones!

IMG_3664

Last month my focus was cross training and recovery. I mixed it up a bit before starting up with the Runner’s World Run Streak on Thanksgiving giving myself just the break I needed. My legs feel completely recovered and strong, and ready to get back into racing.

For this month I’ll focus on strength training and slowly building my mileage again, so I’m ready to start a new training plan in late December for the Shamrock Half Marathon!

How did you do on your resolutions for 2013? Have you started thinking about 2014 yet?

Resolution Check-In

Posted on by
2

It’s that time again for my monthly check in on my New Year’s Resolutions. I’ve been putting this one off since I didn’t hit my big goal of a BQ at MCM, and I have no plans of running another marathon before the end of the year. While I’m not going to give it another shot right away, I know I will eventually cross this off my list!

Last month’s big focus was drinking less soda. I did better than I have been doing and managed to go a couple days a week without grabbing a soda. I’m planning to keep working on this and add a few more days without it each week. Damn that fridge full of free soda just steps from my desk!!

Core strength and staying injury free were other resolutions I had this year. I continue to work on my core strength and also was smart enough to get myself in to the physical therapist last month to check out a problem before it became an injury.

With the year winding down, I’m turning this month’s focus to recovery and cross training. I want to get back into working out after my marathon by embracing yoga, spinning, the elliptical and the weight room. Of course, I’m sure there will be some running in there too, but overall it’s going to be a November filled with other activities.

dmyyoga

Are you still working towards those resolutions? How has your year gone so far?

 

Resolution Check-In

Posted on by
5

And just like that…it’s October. I can’t even believe my marathon month is here. Commence freaking out now!

I’ve made it a point this year to look back on my New Year’s Resolutions each month so that I don’t let myself forget about them. I also pick one thing each month that I’m going to focus on to help me reach those resolutions/goals. Last month I turned my focus back to core workouts after letting them slip a bit. I did a great job getting back on track with these and will continue to do so throughout the next month as I get ready for Marine Corps Marathon.

This month my big focus will be back on drinking less soda. The fridge full of free soda just steps from my desk is killing me! I only have one can a day, but still, I don’t need to be drinking soda every day! Most times I just drink it out of habit, so I’m going to try make myself do something else whenever I hit that point in the afternoon that I start craving caffeine. I drink a ton of water so sometimes I get bored and just want some taste, so I’m also keeping my desk stocked with Nuun and Crystal Light type drinks.

NuunTriBerry

Staying healthy this year was another important goal. I’ve been doing a great job maintaining my stretching, rolling and icing routine, but have had some aches and pains creep in especially with my calf muscles. I don’t think it’s anything serious, but I’m going to be proactive and get things checked out early this time instead of waiting for it to become something serious that puts me on the sidelines. Learning. 🙂

Butterfly Stretch

Butterfly Stretch

My biggest resolution/goal for this year is a Boston Qualifying time. I’m admittedly not as confident about this as I was during the first half of the year, which I hate. Initially I thought I could crush the BQ time I needed and shoot for a time in the 3:20s, but I’ve had a tougher than expected training cycle and that doesn’t seem possible to go for. Still, I’m shooting for that sub-3:35 time I need to BQ, and will run my heart out at MCM at the end of the month trying to get it.

MCMonemonthFB

How are your resolutions going this year?

Resolution Check-In

Posted on by
Reply

I realize I’m starting to sound like a broken record each month when I write these posts and talk about how quickly the year is going, but seriously September got here so quickly I almost forgot to do this month’s resolution check-in post! It’s so easy to let New Year’s resolutions slip after a couple weeks or a couple months, so I’m using these monthly posts to keep me on track.

Resolution number one was to get healthy, which I did early in the year and am happy to say that so far I’m staying that way and any aches and pains have been thwarted with some ice and quality foam rolling time.

Resolution number two was a stronger core, which not only would help me to stay injury free, but could also make me a stronger runner. I feel like I’ve slipped a bit on this and am not doing my core workouts nearly as much as I used to, so I’m going to make that my main focus for this month.

Resolution number three to drink less soda is still an up and down battle, but I’m working on it!

Nuun is definitely helping ease my soda addiction.

Nuun is definitely helping ease my soda addiction.

Resolution number four, which was more of a goal, was a Boston-qualifying time. With less than 50 days to Marine Corps Marathon, it’s almost time to put that to the test. I’m definitely putting in the miles, but as I mentioned in last month’s post, am still a bit worried about my speed. I’m hoping my tune-up races over the next few weeks will give me a good idea of where I stand on this.

Last month’s main focus was the long run and other than missing out during a recovery week when I was sick, I did an awesome job of putting in the long miles each week ranging from 17-19 milers!

To Garmin or Not?

Posted on by
11

I’ll be toeing the start line of the Navy Air Force Half Marathon in a week and a half. This race completely snuck (is that a word?) up on me. Not in an I’m not ready for it kind of way – just in a I can’t believe mid-September is here already kind of way. I’ve been running like crazy and I’m more than ready for it distance-wise. In the last 8 weeks I’ve done 6 long runs in the range of 15-20 miles plus a 10-12 miler during the week each week.

I won’t lie though, I’m really nervous about pacing. While this isn’t a goal race necessarily, it’s a great chance to see where I’m at in my training, an opportunity for redemption after missing my goal at the Nike Women’s Half in D.C. earlier this year and it covers much of the same ground that I’ll have to face during Marine Corps Marathon in October.  No doubt I can do the distance, but I’ve been embracing the long slow run concept and keeping my long runs a bit slower than my marathon goal pace to avoid injury/burnout and to mimic the amount of time I’ll be on my feet come race day. This worked great for me at the Cherry Blossom 10 Miler, but I still haven’t attempted it for a successful half or any full marathons, so despite all the expert advice, I’m still skeptical.

garmin

I’ve rattled off plenty of miles during other weekly runs at goal pace and my track workouts have me going at even faster paces, yet I won’t be totally convinced until I see the results on race day. I’m a big-time data recorder and religiously track my mile split times on my Garmin. I know it’s not completely accurate, but I’m also constantly looking at the current pace during races as well to make sure I stay on track. Even if I don’t look at the watch throughout my training runs, I often (over-) analyze each mile time and what it means after I’m done.

Based on my Garmin-centric, data-obsessed running personality I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m actually considering running the half without a watch. Shudder. I wonder if I just base things off of effort if I’ll be able to maintain my pace and get my goal without the obsessive time checking? I’ve also heard of people who go even faster because they don’t see a pace that should be too hard for them on the watch and slow down because of it. What if I just miss my goal time though? Will I be kicking myself for not wearing a watch? From what I can find on the website, it doesn’t look like this race will have pace groups, so I can’t just tag along with one of those and know my time without actually knowing my time.

I haven’t made a final decision on this yet, but am thinking it might be worth a shot. I’d love to hear from you all – have you ever raced without a watch? How’d it work for you? Even if you haven’t tried it, do you think it could be a good idea or a disastrous one? Comment away – should I Garmin or not??