Category: running

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.

 

Yes, I have a plan.

Yeah, so don’t mind my random train of thought in this post… 🙂

Hey, guess what? I’ve actually been running since I last posted–and it feels great! Okay, so running around a track at the gym (6 laps = 1 mile) isn’t the best, but I’ve been doing it. I’ve even managed to go to yoga a couple times. Score! And I’m waking up at 5:15-5:25 every morning to get some sort of exercise in. Crazy,  I know. I’m finding out, though, that I’m a morning person–at least Monday through Thursday. When Friday hits, I’m just dead tired from the week. My job is super high stress (as it always has been), which doesn’t help. I did change positions/responsibilities, which helps a little.

Anyway . . . Right now, I’m at this weird place where I’m loving running/exercising for fun. I know that my motivation will wane soon, however,  so I’ll be signing up for a 5k, which will take place in March. I’m helping my friend train for her first 5k (so exciting, by the way), so that is the perfect slump-buster for me. I’m also signing up for the Disneyland 10k on Tuesday (cross your fingers that I get in). And I’m hoping to run my first half marathon of the year in June. I’m taking my training slower this time around so I don’t get injured–I don’t need to recover from an injury as I’m working my way up to a marathon. I need to start half-marathon training soon if I’m going to be in really good shape by June 21. By half-marathon training, I mean working my way up to that distance agai n. . . because, remember, I’m back at square one. First stop is that 5k, and then I hope to run a few more races here and there in preparation for my half. 

I’m going to be using Jenny Hadfield’s half-marathon run-walk plan to reduce my chance of injury. We’ll see how it goes. Oh, and check out her site for more great training plans!

Well, I hope ya’ll have a great week. Happy running/yoga-ing/cycling/whatever! 🙂

 

 

What Is This “Running” You Speak Of?

Yes, it’s true. I barely remember what running is anymore. I haven’t run for about 3 weeks–and then only like 5 times in the month before that. Don’t worry (not like you would); I’m not breaking up with running. 🙂 But I am working on strength training. With all the problems with my feet, I decided to ease back into running since my last half marathon. Actually, my first soiree with running after all this time is tomorrow. I think I’ll run about 2 miles and then slowly increase my mileage and time from there. I just really don’t want to hurt myself again.

I have been consistently doing yoga, though, and I’m feeling increased strength and flexibility. And my arms are actually toning up. I’m stoked about that.  I think it’s all the downward-facing dogs we do in my yoga class. Funny how that pose used to be so hard for me, and now it’s a rest pose. 🙂 I love seeing improvement! Here’s a great video on how to do downward-facing dog correctly:

From Yoga with Adriene (YouTube channel)