Sunday, January 6, 2019

First half of 2019 running goals

Happy New Year!

Apparently the only picture I took of New Year's Eve

I was a little weirdly sad at saying goodbye to 2018. The years your kids are born are really special, and, spoiler alert, this was the last one I'll ever have. But time marches on and all, so we did a few Netflix kids countdowns around 6:30pm and I went to sleep around 10pm (Eric was bartending). To celebrate the holiday I looked at my phone whenever Remi woke up (I normally have a strict policy I do not check the time until morning). At some point it was in the 12am hour so I was like yay 2019! Wild times here.

But 2019 is already off to an exciting start. I signed up for a race! My running buddy Jackie and I have a fantastic history of peer pressuring each other to do athletic events, most notably, GORUCK. That's this crazy thing where you march literally all freaking night (in our case 10pm to around noon the following day) with a backpack full of bricks (not kidding) and do things like jump in the Annapolis harbor and carry a telephone pole for hours.



Recaps of that insane night:
http://chocolateismylife-us.blogspot.com/2012/04/when-porto-potty-is-step-up.html
http://chocolateismylife-us.blogspot.com/2012/04/goruck-frightening-visuals.html

Runner up: doing a half ironman triathlon.

Current day: the Baltimore 10 miler. Our wild and crazy challenges are over for right now. A ten mile race is plenty challenging for the moment.


When Royce was only 5 months old, I did a half marathon (with Jackie!). Now, I have no idea how I managed that. While it was a good experience, I knew going into round 3 I didn't want to train for any races while in the trenches of breastfeeding. It's just too much on my body. Racing could wait until the baby was a year old. While I hope to still be nursing then, it's not the same as a five month old who depends on me for 100% of their nutrition.

This race is exactly one week after Remington turns one. It's just that perfect.

It's also a local favorite. I've done it five times before (2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, and 2015 as my first race back when Dalton was 8 months old).

Our training plan is pretty loose, and I can't take any credit, Jackie came up with it all. One long run on the weekend, one weekday run, and one non running workout weekly. I hope some weeks I'll be able to do more, but in this season of life being home full time with a 4 year old, 2.5 year old and 7  month old, that's about all I can commit to. (My 4yo does go to preschool two mornings a week.)
Those rare moments when everyone is playing together nicely.


The jogging stroller only holds two of them, there's no guarantee of a double nap when I can run (Dalton has quiet time in his room), and Eric is coaching basketball so he's normally not home until past bedtime. The other option is getting up before he leaves for work, but that's just not happening. We still have a lot of night time wakeups around here and I need any sleep I can get.

Monthly long run length goals:
January: five miles (already met!)
February: 6 miles
March: 7 miles
April: 8 miles
mid May: 9 miles

And the race is June 1!


Last week was a bit of a cheat since it was a holiday week and I had Eric around Monday and Tuesday and Jackie was off work, but we are off to a great start. We did 4.5 miles Tuesday. We had intended for 3-3.5, but when we stopped at our cars after completing 3, a miracle occurred. I checked my phone and Eric had sent me this picture.



We hadn't even bothered to try a bottle with Remi since she had refused them while I was maid of honor in Casi's wedding on October 20. (Side note we are like 90% of the way there convincing Casi to do the race.) But Eric figured it couldn't hurt and she took it! She only had about an ounce, but it was enough to sustain her and she went to sleep after and I was so excited we ran another 1.5 miles! She took another ounce while I met Casi and Carolyn for coffee the next day and I was out of the house for a good four hours of adult time. Exciting stuff around here!

At Loch Raven, one of our favorite routes, during our 4.5 miler

Saturday, we did 5 miles! All of our runs now include some walking in the total mileage. We used to not count that, but times have changed. We also ran some pretty big hills for both of those, since the B10 is notoriously hilly. Even with walking, our 5 mile pace was 10:50, which I'm proud of!

Non running workouts: 15 min low impact HIIT, 10 minute full body strength (both Peloton videos)
Weekday run: 2 mile double stroller walk/run while Dalton was at preschool (this was more like 50/50 walking and running with huge hills) + 1 treadmill mile during nap later that day

Of course it's always easiest to stay motivated at the start of something like this, but being off to a solid start feels good. 

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