2012 Goals

Today was a rest day for me.  My legs were pretty tired from the half and today was the last day of my vacation from work so I decided to spend one last day having fun with my family. 

During the half I was thinking a lot about my 2012 goals.  My main goal is to run a sub 4 hour marathon.  This is a lofty goal for me but I feel it's totally possible.  My fall marathon was a huge PR for me- 4:33:13.  I worked hard for that time and pretty much stuck to my training plan.  If I am going to take 34 minutes off my time it's going to take some work.  My 2012 goals are all related to achieving this main goal.

1.  Follow my training plan.  In my previous marathon training I had a plan but didn't follow it.  In 2011 I followed my plan and I got results.

2. Stretch.  I have the worlds tightest hamstrings.  I've been lucky that my lack of stretching has not led to an injury so far.  This year I will stretch and use my foam roller after my runs.   So far so good, I did it yesterday.  One day at a time- right?  I also want to incorporate yoga into my routine.  Realistically I can't get to a yoga class as often as I would like but if I could get a class in twice a month that would be great.  One of my girlfriends loves taking yoga but also has a hard time fitting classes in so hopefully we can try to do this together. 

3.  Work on my core strength.  Ever since I had Mia I have neglected my core.  I know that a strong core will help my running.  I have some great DVD's I can do at home- P90X Ab Ripper X and a kettlebell DVD.  My goal is to do these videos 3 times a week. 

4. Strength train.  Again since I had Mia I have neglected strength training.  I used to have a regular routine before I became a mom.  I need to start again.  My goal is to strength train twice a week.  I will do this either during my lunch hour at work (I have a gym nearby where I usually run) or by using P90X videos at home.   I'm going to experiment to see which is easier for me to fit in.

5.  Track my mileage.  I see all of these posts about people hitting 1000 miles for the year or some other totals.  I ran a lot this year but I can't give you a grand total because I am so bad about keeping track.  I can look at my marathon training schedule and get some totals from there, my garmin has a lot of my data but not all because sometimes I run on the treadmill and don't record it, and sometimes I run garminless.  This year I will record all of my runs.  I'm going to try using dailymile to record them. 

2012 is going to be a great year!!