Monthly Archives: December 2013

Training Begins

Before heading into tonight’s New Year’s Eve activities of drinking and eating to excess, it’s as good a time as any to delve into my training plan, right?

My plan as of today is to try and run two half marathons, one in April and one in May.  Depending on how my training goes after those, I may try for my first full marathon in October, or I may downstep to the half for that race.

I started training the week of Christmas and so far, not much to report. I’ve got my plan set, with the understanding that it’s flexible. A few new things I’m planning to incorporate:

– 3-4 runs/week
– 1 run a week dedicated to speed training and 1 run a week dedicated to the long run
– 2 days a week of lifting
– 1 day a week of yoga

I’m hoping the addition strength and flexibility training will help me stay on track and uninjured this season. The best I’ve ever felt was when I was running 3x weekly and doing yoga 2x/week. I hope strength training will only increase that feeling. I also just started basic speed training on an indoor track and I can really feel it working. I hope it will keep getting better as I work through my training.

I’m also going to continue my 1 race per month challenge this year and have the first 5 months planned out already. I’m keeping the summer months flexible regarding which races to sign up for based on assessing where I’m at after the two half marathons I’m focused on now.

Looking to 2014

On my desk at work I have a few personal effects.

I have a framed photo of the Wrigley Field sign featuring a congratulatory message to my husband and I on our wedding, a baseball, a framed picture of my husband and I, a page-a-day tropical calendar and some baseballs and stress balls.

I also have a lucky bamboo plant that I was given by a friend of mine as I was leaving my first full time job and heading to this one. When I started at my current company, the plant is small, no more than 2″ wide, and started rather short – maybe 5″ tall.

I don’t see the change in this tiny plant daily. At my year anniversary with the company, however, I looked at the plant next to a photo of the plant when I got there. It had blossomed and almost doubled in height, without any notice from me each day even though it was right in front of my face. That’s how people grow and change, too, just like that lucky bamboo. Slowly, and without notice each day. But each day’s minuscule growth adds up to big change over time.

Image The danger in that is that without seeing the changes happen daily, it’s hard to really track the progress and tell if you’re growing straight up or sideways or downwards. The change is inevitable, but the factors that you surround yourself will impact the direction and rate of growth.

Points in time when you measure growth like a child’s height chart are important to help you make sure you’re on the right track.

From last New Year’s Eve to this one, we’ve had a lot of changes that are easy to see – we look a year older, we’ve changed our address and we’ve had our ups an down this year. But, what I’ve really tried to look at today, is the smaller, minuscule changes that we don’t notice until years down the road.