Category: plans

Friday Five: Five Fitness Goals

I’m linking up with Courtney from Eat Pray Run DC, Cynthia from You Signed Up for WHAT?!, and Mar from Mar on the Run. This week’s Friday Five theme is Blogging or Fitness Goals. I’ll be talking about my fitness goals today, but first let’s check my goals for 2014:

  1. Get into shape. I hit the gym more in 2014 and ran a few races, so I call this a success.
  2. Run a marathon. I lost the motivation and injured my ankles a few too many times to achieve this goal.
  3. Do a handstand. I haven’t achieved this yet, but my shoulder stands are getting better, which means my core is getting stronger. So this is a fail, but I’m definitely progressing.
  4. Go on a kick-awesome trip. Huge check for this! I went on several trips (California x 3; North Carolina; Seattle; San Francisco) and the “kick-awesomest” was my trip to Germany and London! I finally went to Europe, and it was everything I hoped it would be and more.
  5. Do a runDisney race. My sister and I successfully signed up for and completed the 2014 Disneyland 10k! Next on my runDisney list is the 2015 Dumbo Double Dare.
  6. Try not to let the stress of my job get to me. Medication just wasn’t the answer for me on this. I decided to quit my job in June instead and I’ve never been happier. 🙂
  7. Move across the country. Not yet but soon!
  8. Spend less. I think I did a better job at this in 2014, but I can do better for sure.
  9. Cultivate a new talent. Not exactly a new talent, but I worked on my recipe-making and writing skills to work on a cookbook, which is being published in May 2015–The Cheese Lover’s Cookbook.
  10. Have fun! And be happier. Since I quit my job, this has definitely been achieved. I’m happier than I’ve ever been and less stressed.

 

2015 Goals

Now for my five 2015 fitness goals:

  1. Complete the 2015 Dumbo Double Dare. This is my A challenge for the year. The first challenging part will be registering. After that, I’ll be following the official training plan to complete the distance. Really excited about this. I’ve been slowly building up my base again.
  2. Run a marathon by December. I wanted to run a marathon in 2014, but since that didn’t happen, 2015 is the year! I hope to continue my training after Dumbo to complete the marathon. No time goals.
  3. Achieve PRs in the 10k and half marathon. I’m hoping my training for Dumbo and the marathon will help me with this goal. I won’t say no to a PR in the 5k either.
  4. Develop more strength (and tone up) by (1) Practicing yoga at least twice per week. I just love yoga and need to practice more on my own if I can’t make it to class; and (2) Attending pump class at least once per week. My gym has awesome pump classes. I’m looking forward to going every week.
  5. Run a race every month if possible. Most of these will be for fun and just to keep me motivated. I already know which races I’ll be running January through April . . . and possibly May. January and February are 5ks, March and April are 10ks, and May might be a half marathon. I won’t bore you with details now; that’s what later is for. 😉
  6. Be injury-free in 2015! I just had to include this . . .

What are your fitness or blogging goals for this year? Don’t forget to link up at You Signed Up for WHAT?!, Mar on the Run, and Eat Pray Run DC.

 

10 Running Questions

So these questions (originating at anothermotherrunner.com) have been floating around the runner-blog world, so I thought I’d just go with it and post my answers too.

Me and The Husband after a race we ran together last year.

1. Best run ever: It’s hard to nail a run down as “the best,” but I went on a 5-mile run with The Husband a couple weeks ago that was pretty dang awesome. We kept each other going the whole time and stuck together. The run was really special to me because we normally run our separate ways on Saturday mornings. I hope we can have more running dates in the future.

2. Three words that describe my running: Fun (mostly). Liberating. Empowering.

3. My go-to running outfit is: A Nike Dri-Fit shirt, capris, SmartWool socks, and my Saucony Mirages/Brooks Launches.

4. Quirky habit while running: I don’t know how quirky this is, but I pump my right arm higher and faster than my left. Maybe I think it makes me go faster or something.

5. Morning, midday, evening: I love mornings, but when I’m too lazy to get up, I run after work.

6. I won’t run outside when it’s: Dark. I’m too terrified to run alone outside in the dark. I might go if I have a running buddy, though.

7. Worst injury—and how I got over it: Well, I’m still getting over some moderate left-foot pain due to some plantar fasciitis and bad tendons, which might not be my “worst” injury, but it is definitely my longest-duration one. Now I get to go to physical therapy for some ASTYM (basically stimulation of the body’s healing process). (I’ll go into more detail later.)

8. I felt most like a badass mother runner when: Well, I’m not a mother runner–yet–but I feel most badass when I run further than I ever have before.

9. Next race is: Provo Halloween Half Marathon on October 27–I can’t wait. AND I’m so excited to be running it with my dear sister-in-law. 🙂

10. Potential running goal for 2013: No injuries! And to finish a few more halfs–and maybe a triathlon!

How would you answer the above questions? Copy these and paste them to your own blog post and share a little bit of yourself with the runner community! 🙂

I’m a Ninja Turtle

I was at the gym a couple weeks ago, plugging away on the treadmill at an easy pace, and guys kept jumping on the machines on both sides of me–might I mention that there were about 10 other empty treadmills nowhere near me?)–and running 5- and 6-minute miles. I hope they felt good about themselves. 🙂

I signed up for a Halloween half marathon this year, and quite honestly, I’m terrified yet excited to be running that far. I’ve been loosely following a training plan, which seems to be working out well. My long runs are up to seven miles–a distance that I never thought I could run.

Donatello!

But . . .

I only ran 2 miles today when I was supposed to run 8. Why? Well, I think I might have another injury in my foot–even though I’ve been increasing my mileage by only 5-10% each week leading up the Halloween Half. My foot started feeling a little wonky in August, but I have just run through any discomfort. And I didn’t feel “pain” per se until last week’s seven-mile run. Sigh. I’m hoping that a couple weeks off of running will help my feet recover and that I’ll at least be able to finish the race. We’ll see. I’m still looking forward to the race though because I’m going to dress up as Donatello!!  Super excited to be going as my favorite Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle!