New Year....new try...

I am going to try this blogging thing again this year.   The main reason I want to blog is to keep track of my own progress.   If anything I have to say helps someone else, well then that is another plus!

So much has happened in the past year that I was not expecting.   My youngest had some serious health problems that took a lot of my attention.  I was working on getting started again but then I took a hiatus from training during my kids' winter break.   There was just too much going on.  I had to let something go and it ended up being exercise and training. 

On January 9th, my kids returned to school and as soon as I got them on the bus I headed to the gym.  I think I overdid it.   I did 30 minutes on the treadmill, 30 minutes on the stair stepper, and then 30 minutes on the cycles.   The next day I was sore, but managed to get 35 minutes in on the treadmill.  At this point I thought I was going somewhere that afternoon but life got in the way (My husband could not get off work early and my check engine light came on my van.   This adult thing is really overrated sometimes.)

I have decided for now to do time training rather than mile training.    This means rather than running a set number of miles per day, I run for a set amount of time.    I am really hard on myself concerning how long it takes me to run a set number of miles.  I am hoping than with just focusing on time, I will not focus as much on "how fast of a 5k would this have been??".  So far it seems to be working..at least on the giving myself a hard time portion of it.   Time will tell if it helps with speed and endurance.

The race I am training for now is a 5K.   It is Nashville's Hot Chocolate race.    I chose to do the 5K rather than the 15K because I do not have enough faith in my ability to run a 15k by February.    This will be my first race as a "masters runner".   To those not familiar with the term, it does not mean I have "mastered" running.   It means I am 40+ years old.    Most races have a separate category for runners 40 and over.   Some races even have grand masters runners for those over 50 or so (varies by race).    I turned 40 last month, so a masters runner I am.  

I am looking into some other races as well.    I hope to do a longer race before the end of the year.

I plan to log my training as much as I can.   I hope being able to look back will also help me look forward.