2014 Goals

As January 2014 took hold and my family and I were able to move on from a rather difficult 2013, I began thinking about my goals for the upcoming year.  Honestly, they were quite the same as normal... place high both as an overall finisher and my new age group (I turned 30 in October), and obtain personal records (PR's).  Generally, my goal is to be in the top 10 women overall (depending on the size of the race) and to place in my age group. While I have not planned races beyond this spring, I have a full plan in swing for the next several months leading up to the Lincoln Half-Marathon.  My races are as follows:

Empyrean Trail 5K (Feb. 1)- Done, finished.

Kicks and Kisses 5k (Feb. 15)

Bryan Health Indoor Triathlon (Feb. 15)

Leprechaun Chase NE (March 8)

Leprechaun Chase IA (March 15)

(possibly) Ni-Bthaska-Ke Trail Run  (April 6)

Lincoln Half-Marathon (May 4)

Market to Market IA (May 10)

In order to race well, I began my training plan in January.  Basically, my plan is to run 6 times per week, completing one long run and 5 short/easy runs.  I will start formally training for the half at the end of February...hopefully keeping the 6 runs intact but adding speed work twice a week.  I am also spinning 3 times a week and completing one session on the elliptical.  I know that this sounds like a ridiculous amount of working out, but if I run 3 miles and spend 30 minutes on the spin bike, this is only 50 minutes of cardio which is pretty do-able.  This whole plan was going rather well for the first 3 1/2 weeks of January, but I began to notice that I was having some issues recovering towards the end of the month.  I realize that these workouts will do NOTHING for my fitness if I'm not able to recover, so I took a couple days off and followed those by a couple easy days and felt much better.  As I reviewed my January training, I tried to focus on some recovery tactics.  For example, I realized that I did not need to hammer EVERY workout.  I tried to drink more water instead of coffee.  I'm trying to get more sleep, but this is very difficult with two children under two in our home.

February is off to a good start.  I finished 2nd overall in the Empyrean 5k and completed my 8 mile long run the following day.  Next week, I get to look forward to both a 5k and a triathlon.

Here's to 2014!