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.