Knowing My Limits

2012 Miracle Miles 15K

The above photo is from last year's Miracle Miles 15k in Orlando. My sister and I tackled our first 15k together that day and let me tell you, I felt so empowered, strong, and badass! At the same time, I felt so very burned out on running, but I had a half marathon on the horizon in February so I kept at it pushing through the discomfort and exhaustion....and injured my foot pretty badly (which I mentioned in this post). I was still able to run my first half marathon and far exceeded my time goal which was understandably conservative due to the injury and time off.

Training for and running the Disney Princess Half Marathon in February was the highlight of my running career thus far. I loved it. I loved the long runs and I loved the actual race. So much so that I  want to run another half this year and I'm contemplating signing up for Disney Princess 2014 too!

This time around I'm planning to train more conservatively, but hopefully still PR. I'm not sure that is possible, but I know my body feels better when I have the time and energy to strength train and practice yoga in the midst of training for a race. I normally LOVE Hal Higdon's training plans and I used his intermediate plan to train for the Disney Princess race. This time around in order to avoid burn-out and keep my sanity (or are those two things really the same thing? HA!), I'm going to try a different training plan by Runner's World that only includes 4 days of running each week, leaving plenty of time for a well rounded fitness routine. A sample week will look like this:

Monday: Strength Train/Weights
Tuesday: Run
Wednesday: Strength Train/Weights
Thursday: Run
Friday: Run
Saturday: Yoga
Sunday: Long Run

I think it seems very doable and I'm so excited to get started! Now I just have to decide which November half marathon I want to run. Hmmm... decisions, decisions! ;)