I’m going to go ahead and point out the obvious.  Earlier this week, I said I wanted to post more about family life and less about running.  And yet, here I am, with a second post about running this week.  Typical!  This is a good one though, I promise!  (Maybe I shouldn’t promise, but it was therapeutic to write, so hopefully it’s “good”!)

So, I want to talk a little bit about my running lately.  It’s no secret that it’s been.. off.  I can give you all of the excuses — holidays, injury, being sick, etc.. but the honest truth is I just wasn’t loving running.  Sure all of those things were factors, but I could have pushed through.  I would have made time if it was a priority.

I got to thinking about what has changed.  I used to love running.  I used to look forward to my training runs.  It’s been a while since I felt that way though.  As I was going back and cleaning up old blog posts last week, it dawned on me that my excitement really seemed to dwindle as the training for my first marathon ramped up.  Instead of my times becoming faster, I got slower.  I didn’t love running long, which made me really not love running since I had to run long.

Half Marathon PR at the Bainbridge Half in 2013

Way back in early 2013, when I was killing races and had PR after PR, I’d set a goal to run a race every month.  I feel like it helped keep me accountable and excited about running.  Who doesn’t love working hard and then PRing at races?!  And also, it’s not nearly as much fun when you feel like you’re killing yourself at races and not getting a PR, am I right?

Since 2015 is off to a pretty good start (I ran two races in January and two in February), I figured I might as well keep it going.  Right now, I have three races on my calendar for March, three for April, two for May.. maybe I should just make my goal to run two races per month?  No, that’s crazy, especially in the summer when races are hard to find in Florida because it’s so dang hot.  But I am going to shoot for at least one.  Maybe two.

I’m hoping that committing to racing more will keep me excited to get out the door during the week.  I did pretty good this week, as long as I run today and tomorrow I will have done all of the runs I had on my schedule!  It’s really frustrating coming back from an injury or a break.  I’m running times now that were a breeze a year ago and they are really hard now.  I know that in time, I’ll get back to where I was.. and maybe even faster.  I’m trying to do it right this time though.

One of the big things I’m trying to do is yoga.  Yoga is the one form of exercise that I never have to talk myself in to doing.  I really love my time on the mat.  I started a 30 Days of Yoga challenge using videos on YouTube by Yoga with Adriene.  If you’re new to yoga or looking for a way to do more of it at home, definitely check them out.  (I’m not being paid to say that, I found the videos on my own and love them.)

I’ve been working on a new training plan and grabbing ideas from a lot of different ones.  I said earlier this year that I’d really love to run a sub-2 half marathon this year.  I’ll be honest, I don’t know if I have it in me given my current fitness level, but I want to try.  Right now I’m focused on building up to running without relying on intervals and once I get there, I’m planning to start doing speed work and tempo runs again.

I’m going to try to really do things right.  To take true rest days, to run three or four times a week, to do yoga most days, and to continue to do the strengthening exercises that my chiropractor gave me, to hopefully help keep the injuries away.  I should probably lay off the chocolate too and clean up my diet a bit, but hey, baby steps, right?!?