I hope you all had an amazing holiday! I’m so late posting this that I’m sure most of us have moved on from thoughts of Christmas. I’ll just say quickly it was an amazing time for us as with our new family. It was such a joy to see Chase experience all the aspects of Christmas for the first time: church, opening presents, lots of toys. 🙂 Just warms my heart!

So on to the new year! Happy 2014!!

As Drew likes to say, “it’s the year of the comeback”. Meaning we are all ready to get back to the business of running and training hard. Well in my case training hard, will be easy to accomplish. My fitness is so low that most runs feel hard. It’s like I’m starting all the back to the beginning. Except in this case, I know that with consistent hard work the pain will eventually become less and less and the euphoria that running brings will be back.

I won’t be crushing my PRs and still I like the idea of referencing this year as a “comeback year”. I think it will be a year of finding balance of everything we have going on. My training is lighter, but the time I can commit will be more meaningful. The time I’m committing takes me away from Rob and Chase, but at the same time promotes my health so I can hopefully be with them more in the long run. 🙂

I also can’t wait for the warm weather to come back so we can get out for walks and bike rides as a family. 🙂

My race plans for 2014 are starting to form, right now I have the following on my radar.

• St. Pat’s 5K – March
• Lincoln Memorial Half – April
• CCHS 5K – April
• IL Half Marathon – April
• Lake Run 12K – May
• Galesburg 5K – June
• Park to Park 5M – July

More to come as events get announced. For now I’m gearing my training to get me in shape to run IL Half Marathon. My training plan is very easy and comprises of 3-4 days of running. As I was saying, I’m basically starting over from scratch so I have to be careful and ease back into things to try to prevent injuries. Also, this light plan will also work best with balancing working, taking care of an infant, and taking care of the house. I built this training plan from Runner’s World Smart Coach and adjusted the days of the runs to fit my schedule. Since I am just looking to get more fit, I don’t have a race time goal. I’m basing my paces by level of effort. Which actually works out perfect because perceived effort can change if it’s been a hard night with baby or something like that.

Here’s how my easy training has gone so far:

Week 1

• 4 Miles Easy
• 3 Miles Easy
• 4 Miles Tempo w/2 Faster Pace

Week 2

• 3 Miles Easy
• 5 Miles Long
• 4 Miles Interval

Week 3

• 4 Miles Easy
• 4 Miles Easy
• 3.7 Mils Easy (Baby woke up, didn’t get to 5 miles, oh well)

Week 4

• 4 Miles Easy
• 3 Miles Easy
• 2 Miles Easy (bagged long run, wasn’t feeling well for a few days)

I feel good that while this plan won’t bring a bump up of speed I do feel like it’s getting me into a good practice how to fit running in around everything else. For weekday runs I try to get them done at 4am if the baby is sleeping. Weekends I try to complete them during her first nap. On weeknights I’m studying for an insurance exam (which is hard to do and not fall asleep). I’m terrible at taking tests so this may not end well, but at least I’m trying. 🙂

I can’t believe a month of “training” has already passed. I know it’s not much, but I’m excited that the running year has all begun!

Please share any goals you have for 2014! I would love to hear about what’s on your radar for the coming year.