Snow Storms & Race Planning

Happy Monday friends! I hope you had a great weekend. We spent it in a cabin the mountains (Big Bear, about a 3 hour drive from San Diego) with three other couples and their babies. It was a really fun mini getaway and the weekend went even better than expected, minus the fact that these Southern California natives got caught in the snow driving up and I saw my life flash before my eyes as we attempted to drive in a storm for the first time. We ended up making it within a 1/2 mile of the cabin before our car got stuck on a icy hill and had to have our friends come rescue us. That was after frantically purchasing chains, even more frantically installing them (after watching a YouTube video on our iPhones while sitting in a turn-out) and watching as other cars fishtailed across the winding mountain road and several others got stuck in the snow. It was an exciting Friday afternoon.

In running related news, if you follow me on social media you may have seen that I got accepted into the New York Marathon!!! This was my first time entering the lottery and I had read somewhere that only 10% of people got in so I was pretty shocked when I got in. Turns out this year about 24% of people were accepted so my odds were better than I imagined. Either way, I feel pretty lucky to have been selected and I am really excited for the race! I wasn’t sure if a full marathon would be in the cards for me this year but this made up my mind.

I’m really looking forward to running a marathon for something other than chasing a BQ. For the past three years I’ve been choosing my marathons solely based on how fast I think the course is. Now I finally get to run a bucket list race and I couldn’t be more thrilled! I’m still not sure how the weekend will go for me, but at this point it’s looking more and more like I’ll be flying solo to New York and leaving Mike and Siena behind.

Getting into New York (which happens on November 6th) means that I have to start marathon training in July. And if you have been following my spring and summer race schedule, you know that I have a half marathon in April, June and July. So that means that I’ll be pretty much training for races from now until November. While I am excited about getting back into it, I also know that going back to work full time and managing all that training is going to be tough at times. Plus, I really love yoga and strength training too so I don’t want to completely burn out on running by the time New York rolls around.

The plan I have floating around in my mind is to continue training for La Jolla Half as I have, with Rock n’ Roll San Diego being my goal half marathon this year (remember one of my 2016 goals is to finish a half marathon feeling proud of my training and effort). La Jolla is coming up real quick and I’m basically using it as base building for RnR SD. I got in my first speed workout last week, which was a pretty sad display of fitness, but I have to start somewhere.

After RnR SD I have only 6 weeks until the San Diego Craft Classic half marathon, and I plan to take a week off of running completely after the race, and then we’re heading to Hawaii for a family vacation. After that, I’d like to do the 21 Day Fix (and continue running of course, but probably just 3 days a week) and host a challenge group and then run the Craft Classic “for fun.” We’re doing a Oiselle Team meet up at the race and Asia is running it and it’ll be fun to run together again. I want to do 21 Day Fix to get my strength up before marathon training and also because I love a challenge and want to do something other than running to avoid burn out (I also plan to host a challenge group and would love for any of you to join me!). I’m not the type of runner who can run year round without getting bored of it so I think this will be a great way to take a refresher before marathon training really ramps up. I’ll still have the base I’ll have built from the spring half marathon training to go from.

The end of summer and early fall will be dedicated to marathon training. I don’t know which book or website I’ll use to craft my plan, but I do know that I won’t be hiring a coach. The reason I won’t be using a coach is mostly budget related, but also because I’ve had success coaching myself in the past and as of now I don’t plan to try to PR or BQ at New York (basically one in the same at this point since my PR is 26 seconds off a BQ). Things definitely could change and if my training is telling me that I can run a PR, I’ll go for it. But if it’s not, I’m definitely not going to push it. I’ve put enough pressure on myself to run fast marathons and I really want to enjoy this one. If I’m feeling good about where I’m at, I may try for a BQ in early 2017 but time will tell!

So there we go – I can’t believe 2016 is basically mapped out already. How I’ll make it all work with an infant is TBD but I know that since training is important to me, I’ll make time for it. Luckily I already am used to 5:30 AM workouts since that is when I’ll probably be doing the majority of my training.

How far out do you plan your race schedule? Have you ever run the New York Marathon?