Plans and Goals - The Best Is Yet To Come!

I think I need to change my blog name to "Tales from the FORGOTTEN Scale". The whole time I was training for the half, I was bouncing up and down between the same 5 stinkin' pounds. It didn't really bother me all that much, but now I think I need to start multi-tasking and bring the whole weight thing back to my immediate consciousness.

Mainly because I know that 15 pounds less of me can potentially drop 30 - 45 seconds from my pace - or so I've read. So of course now I need to test that theory. I also know that I ate more than I needed to while preparing for this race. But I was so focused on getting the training in that I had no focus left for analyzing every bite of food. I ate healthy, limited sweets, lots of water, little to no alchohol...I was a good girl! I just ate more than I needed, and so, I am not losing weight.

Fifteen pounds is not a lot to loose really, but it is when it's the LAST 15 pounds I need to lose! So...it's back to food journaling for me. That's the first step. The next part of the plan is to keep up with the cross training.

I LOVE to do strength training....weights, BOSU ball, planks....LOVE all of that. But I do NOT love other forms of cardio! So I slack on it. The bike is not fun. It is HARDER than running (I know, go figure), and I don't have the patience to sit on the bike at the gym. I would rather run. So the next step includes taking a spin orientation and then trying out a class or two and see if I can have some FUN on the bike while blasting away the supposed 500 calories in an hour's time that I've heard about. We'll SEE. I will TRY IT but I may not LIKE IT! ;-) But if I want to lose weight...I need to burn more calories!

And so that leaves my beloved running...which of course I will continue with three runs per week for now because I don't want to risk injuring myself (hence the cross training) while I train for my next half. I think my next half will be either the RoadRunner Akron Marathon on September 26th, which happens to be the day after my 42nd birthday (holy crap I am getting OLD). OR, I would love to try the Towpath Marathon in October. I have some time to decide but I'm really leaning towards Akron. There is some Detroit talk going around with Shosh and company, but I'm not sure if I can do it with the travel and all, at least not this year.

I've already printed out my RunnersWorld SmartCoach plan which starts next week! The RunnersWorld plan did not work well for me for this half, because the speedwork was agressive for my ability, and I just didn't have the base for the miles. But, I entered my 1/2 marathon time and it gave me a good 16 week training plan that looks do-able to me now! The paces even seem a bit slow to me, but I will give it a go first before I do any tweaking. I plugged my time into a pace calculator and the training paces that came up are right on target with the RunnersWorld plan, so I feel pretty good about the plan!

My goal for the next half is obviously to better my time. It doesn't get any simpler than that! The nice thing about the next training cycle is that I will have two 10 mile runs and two 11 milers. And speedwork and more formal tempo runs. I am looking forward to kicking it up a notch!

I'm feeling great after the race Sunday and have been doing some walking. I was going to do Pilates tonight but since Chris had a rough day or two, I am hangin' with him instead this evening. He is on the way back up though and tomorrow will be a better day.

For Chris and for me, and everyone for that matter....the best is yet to come!

Cheers~