Every New Beginning Comes from Some other Beginning's End

So that's a quote from Semisonic's song "Closing Time" and I thought it was appropriate for my first post. So, in my first post I think I'll talk about some of the goals that I have for running and all things related this year, especially considering May/June will mark 2 years since what I consider when I began to become a "competitive" (or toying around with the idea) runner. Hence, the end of my being a beginner, but the beginning of me getting serious about doing everything I need to do to get better.

So, a few goals that I have already started on, beginning with the obvious numerical goals:
Short term, to run a half marathon in 1:30 or under and a marathon in 3 hours or under. The latter will probably be hard to hit, as I almost did the first if it weren't for severe abdominal cramping. Also I'd like to run a 5k in under 19 minutes but I am more concerned with the longer stuff.

Work on nutrition. I've already started this by getting a nutritionist, a HUGE step. Not only being a personal trainer, but also since I was an exercise science major who took nutrition classes and physiology classes, I knew the importance of nutrition, but didn't always practice what I preached. I ate "healthy" low fat foods, and enough calories, but didn't eat enough nutrient dense foods. My nutritionist (an amazing runner herself, I might add) is encouraging and helping me to eat more veggies, more natural foods (no more sugar free, fat free crap), more protein, and more healthy fat. I am also trying to eat every 3 hours or so to keep my energy up. Most importantly, I am fueling within 15 minutes of my running, especially hard ones, since that is the "crucial time window" in which the muscles are most susceptible to nourishment. So far I am doing really well with this and even trying to expand my food horizons. I have also weaned myself off of diet coke a good deal which is HUGE since I used to have about 10 cans a day (yes, this should qualify as addicted).

Another goal is to stretch/ice/massage/sleep more. The first two are more important obviously, and I already get massages on a ridiculously regular basis. Not stretching and icing has probably led me to borderline injuries more recently, so I cannot forget to do these things, especially since my mileage has been pretty high. I even took a Body Flow class last week after a hard running workout. In addition I need to incorporate a cut-back mileage week every 3rd week of my training cycle to allow my body to recover from the previous high-mileage weeks. I am sometimes good about sleep (I NEED 8+ hours) but other times not when I have to wake up earlier to run like at the trail.

Be strong mentally during races. So many times I toe the starting line thinking "why am I doing this" or "this is going to suck" or "so and so here and she's is crazy good" or "uh oh, my legs are feeling heavy." Or sometimes, I get into the race and all I can do is look at my clock and think "there's no way I can keep this pace, I'm so tired already" which is usually just due to a shock to the body in the first few miles before I settle in (which I could probably fix a bit by not going out so fast). If I relax mentally, I can relax physically, as I learned from the book Running Within.

Other more specific running goals - more hills, focus on form, run with others. This is starting to get long so I'll just say I need to do more hills. I've done repeats twice but I don't want to insert something new TOO much into training right before a race, plus I already run hilly parts around my neighborhood. I need to work on strengthening my upper body to use my arms more efficiently and definitely increase turnover which is incredibly slow. I really need to run with others to help push myself in workouts as well as get used to something similar to competition. I've also been doing abs and pushups every day which is good.

So that's it for now. I will try to post my workouts from training, but I'll also include some stuff about my Body Pump and Body Combat classes as well as the FHS team and my Brick Bodies Running Club.