A hard race

This year one of my goals is to do harder races and longer races.  Yesterday I did a hard team race that included tire flipping, cinder block carrying and stacking and then running/jogging or walking a 5K with 15 extra pounds on your back.  Here is the link if you want to see pictures and read about it.

I am currently training for several long races this year and I want to be able to do them safely, so I made my own training plan so that hopefully I can do all these races without tight IT bands or other injuries.  It seems like most half marathon and marathon training plans make you run a whole mile further each week even though it is said that you should only increase your distance week to week by 10%.  I tried increasing my miles by 1 mile further each week last year and ended up with several different injuries.  So now I do have long runs, but I alternate every other week with a super long distance of 7 or more miles.  Still doing at least 12-17 total miles a week between 3-4 days.

After doing the race you will read about in the morning yesterday I went for a long run of 8.35 miles last night. Total distance running/jogging/walking for the day was 12.05 miles.  I wanted to run at the end of the day when I was tired.  I figured that if I had the energy to run later in the day a long way then I will definitely be able to run a longer distance at the beginning of the day in just a couple weeks.

In two weeks I get to go with my friend Tracy to Texas.  She was invited to a family wedding and instead of having her husband with her I get the chance to go with her.  We decided to find a race in Texas so that we could have a finishing medal from another state.  In Texas  is our 10 mile race, then three weeks after that I have a half marathon in Columbus, Ohio and I get to see my parents.  Then two weeks after that another half marathon here in Iowa, and then 2 weeks after that a 20K (12.4 miles) in DesMoines, Iowa.  Then one week after that my first Sprint Triathlon.

Training for races is exhausting, but so worth it.  At the end of each hard workout whether it is weight lifting, swimming, biking, or running, you always feel completely amazing.   I hope that all this hard work is a good example for my children.  I want them all to be healthy and end up loving exercise.  Next week I get to enjoy a 5K race with some friends of mine and three of my children, I will be sure to post a lot of pictures of that race as well on my  running blog.