Daily Grind

Well, I do feel as if I have slacked in the blogging area, but I promise that I haven't been slacking in the running area. That's what my focus has been on this week. And it has been a much better week, I am very glad to say. I joined the gym last week because I've been having difficulty with my skin in the cold weather, and running on the treadmill has REALLY helped with that. It's also helping me with pacing which is great.

I'm trying to work on a routine to get me to meet my short term goals that will ultimately lead to my big long term goal-- the marathon. So Aleen and I have worked out our short term goals on a weekly basis until we get to the race. It works from Hal Higden's training guide, which has been helpful. Mine is a little varied, but I think I'm getting the gist of if. His training guide starts at about 20 miles a week, so I'm working towards getting up to that volume. When I was training for the 10k, I did almost that much when I was going strong. I think it's really doable. I'm starting off slow though. This week's goal was 10 miles, and I'm working on a rest-run-rest-run-run-run-cross format. I started strong with my long run (3 miles) on Monday, and then had a rest day on Tuesday. Then yesterday and today I ran 2.5 miles. So tomorrow if I do 2 miles, I will have completed my goal and I will be able to cross train on Saturday. I can't wait to figure out what I'm going to do as cross training!

I really need to work on my priorities with training, because I'm notorious for biting off more than I can chew. Like this week I've really been focused on my pacing, and I almost think I need to give myself a little break as far as that goes. The competition part of my brain gets going and I start thinking about time. Now, considering this is the first marathon that I'm going to do, I think I need to be a little easier on myself so that I don't burn myself out. Then again, maybe me pushing myself is a really good thing, and instead of thinking in the mindset of getting "burned out" and giving myself a break, I just need to use that drive as momentum. Maybe it's just about finding a balance. That's probably more like it. As far as training goes, I think my priorities are as follows:

1. I need to just stay focused, keep with my training program and keep moving with it until (and after) the race. Keep mapping out my goals and doing my best to stick to them.
2. Work on building a healthier body. Eat the right foods, keep working on building better techniques for taking care of body and all that it houses.
3. Work on timing. As much as I want to say it doesn't matter to me what time I finish in, I have to say I do want to finish with a half-way decent time.
4. Focus on my needs and no one else's I have got to quit thinking about what other people are thinking.

I think that training will really help with all of these things. I want so badly to be disciplined. I need more structure in my life. It is so difficult to try to do the right things when you are trying to figure out what the right things are. Especially when there are advantages and drawbacks to everything. Like joining the gym was a great thing; however, I had not anticipated that all the other people in the gym would want to watch would be FoxNews. Now... not bashing the news, but I generally don't watch it because it stresses me out. Now, reducing stress is all in the plan of training, so I had to come up with a solution to that. I tried reading today which was difficult to do because I'm bouncing so much, but generally it helped. It also made the time go by a lot faster. Any other ideas?