Fresh Start

This past week I did not get much running in. Aside from my long run last Sunday, I only ran 2 other times. Which is not great, but I did do more strength training so I guess that is a positive.

Weekly Mileage:
Sun: 7.13 miles (11:37 avg. pace)
Tues: 2 miles on the treadmill
Fri: 3.08 miles
Total for the week: 12.21 miles

I'm off to a fresh start with a 4 mile run this afternoon. That was the scheduled long run for today, which I don't consider long anymore. Hopefully the rest of the week I'll be able to complete all of my runs.

SWAMP STOMP

Since the Shamrock 1/2 Marathon was full when we went to register I had been looking for a replacement. A friend informed me of the Dismal Swamp Stomp 1/2 Marathon in April. I think this will actually be a better deal for Ryan and I. It gives us another month to train and it is cheaper! So as of Tuesday morning Ryan and I are registered to run in the SWAMP STOMP on April 17, 2010. Hey, I even think the name sounds better than the Shamrock!

(Sorry the picture is so blurry. Not quite sure how to make it better.)

30 Day Shred

After reading many reviews of 30 Day Shred I decided to go ahead and try it out. It was on sale for $9, so I picked it up today after work. After completing my treadmill run I popped in the DVD and did level 1. It wasn't too bad. But it was a good 20 minute workout. I plan on doing Level 1 10 times and then moving up to Level 2 for 10 times and then Level 3. Hopefully it will help me to shed or SHRED some pounds. I thought running would have helped with that but I haven't lost a single pound. I need to get back to some strength training ...so hopefully with 3DS, Kettlebells and BodyPump at the gym I'll be looking and feeling better.

Mileage Update

Since running with my Garmin Forerunner 305 and uploading my running stats on the Training Center computer program I've realized that I need to keep track of my mileage from Sunday-Saturday instead of Monday-Sunday. So with the New Year I will blog my weekly mileage Sunday to Saturday, which only makes sense since the first day of the week is Sunday.

So since I won't be recording my weekly mileage today (since it is the first day of the week), I will comment on my long run of 7.13 miles today. It....was....great! I was a bit nervous about jumping from 5 to 7 miles, but it was actually quite easy. I kept a slow and steady pace, averaging 11:37 min/miles. It was a great way to end my Winter Break from work. Tomorrow it is back to the grind. So I guess I better go start preparing for the week a little bit.

Races in 2010

To go along with my running goal for this year I would like to complete at least one race each month. I've been looking at the Peninsula Track Club's race schedule and I would like to complete the following races each month:

January: Big Daddy 10K (Jan. 23) and/or Cold F-F-Feet 5K (Jan. 30)
February: Virginia is For Lovers 14K (Feb. 13)
March: Fort Eustis 10K (Mar. 6) and/or Mutt & Jeff's No Ifs, Ands, or Butts 5K (Mar. 26)
April: ???
May: Yorktown Freedom Run 5K (May 31)
June: ???
July: ???
August: Coast Guard Day 5K (Aug. 7) and/or Smart Smiles 5K (Aug. 21)
September: ???
October: Mariners Museum Noland Trail 10K (Oct. 16)
November: ???
December: ???

I will have to update my schedule for a few months that don't have races. So stay tuned....

New Year....New Goals

Since all of the other blogs I have been reading have included goals for 2010, I thought I would too. I really like the idea of setting a goal for miles to run this year. Since starting to record my miles when I began training for the half marathon I have logged 64.61 miles (from Nov. 16 - Dec. 31, 2009). Of course, I have run many more miles than that this past year, these are just the miles that I have recorded.

To determine my goal for 2010 I did not want to set my goal too high. I know a lot of people have set their goals at 1,000 miles for the year, but I didn't want to set my goal that high, based on the amount of running that I have done in the past months. So, I think I will average between 15-20 miles a week, some weeks may be more and some may be less. With that being said I'm setting my goal to....

Run 800 miles in 2010.

I will be ecstatic to reach that goal.

I'm going to try to set up something on the side of my blog to track my mileage.

Here's to running in 2010!

Heartbroken

I am devastated. Ryan and I planned to register for our half marathon at the end of December. So yesterday we logged on to the website to register and it was FULL. Immediately my heart sank. I clicked around on the website trying to find another way (as if that were possible). Then what did I do...I started to cry. First, they were quite little tears that I tried to hide from Ryan. Then they were big, fat sobbing tears. I said to Ryan, "Look at me. I'm crying over running, over wanting to run and not being able to." I never thought that would have been possible. But I have put in so much work training for this half marathon. I was really going to do it. I was committed.

So we proceeded to look at the website some more. The full marathon was still open, but there is no way we would be ready to run 26.2 miles. The training for that is already in double digit miles. Then we looked at the local running clubs website for a chance that there would be another half marathon at around the same time. Well there is one at the end of February, but all the logistics look pretty bad. It is a hilly route and there is a time limit of 2.5 hours. My goal was to finish under 3 hours, but I'm not confident enough to say I would be able to keep up my 12 min/mile pace for 13.1 miles. So I'm not feeling confident for that half marathon...so now what....

I think the plan will be to just keep training for a half marathon as if we were going to run in March. I guess I can keep looking at the Shamrock website each day to see if there are any changes. I'm really bummed, but I've put in a lot of effort so I'm not going to give up.