One of my favorite mantras while running is “always moving forward”. One step at a time, I will always get to where I’m going. That’s how I have always been as a person, and I think it’s a quality of runners in general. I get what I want. I may have to work for it, but I achieve whatever I set my mind on.
Now that I’m (mostly) past my brief injury that felt like forever I’m already looking forward to goals for the rest of this year and 2015. I always do better when I have a plan, so I’m planning on doing a half marathon on January 1, 2015. Crazy, right? I love it. It’s very tentative because who knows what the weather will be like that day, but I love the idea of starting out my year with a half.
That means that training starts now. I will be following the Hal Higdon Novice 2 plan pretty closely. In fact, I started this week, but failed to run last night (my exam left me braindead and needing beer) and I don’t know how this weekend will be. So I may be re-doing the first week/skipping the 4 mile long run week. I know I’m perfectly capable of starting with the 5 mile week next week.
What’s after January 1st you ask? More halfs. I want a 2:10 half, then a 2:00 half. I know a 2:10 is attainable next spring, I know it. There’s also my little problem called marathon fever. As long as I stay healthy, I will do a marathon in 2015. Part of me wants to do it in the spring/early summer. A more rational part of me thinks I should wait until the fall. I plan on keeping up my half marathon training once January 1st hits, and to start working off a marathon plan. If I feel healthy come April, I will likely sign up for the Vemont City Marathon. It’s already taking all I have not to sign up now.
For the next few weeks, I’m going to work on doing my shorter runs faster than I normally would for my normal runs – I have one, maybe two turkey trots in my near future and I think I have a 5K PR in me.
I’m so so excited to be over my little speed-bump and can’t wait to share this next round of training with you all!
Fun fact: This post is brought to you by Amtrak wi-fi – I’m on my way to MARYLAND! (I’m also trying not to hurl so I can study…we’ll see how that works)
Great goals! I love all the positivity in this post! I’m sure with such a great plan you will be able to meet your goals!
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Awesome goals! Taking the plunge to sign up for your first marathon is definitely scary, but it’s so much fun in the end.
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