December 2017 Running Challenge

Missed my November goal of staying healthy, and don't even have the excuse of running a race too hard for it. I'll start December with 3 rest days in a row. I have one race scheduled in December, and the next one is January 1. But then it will be Boston training season. Life and running are not working out as I'd like them to right now.

So, with all that in mind . . .

Nominal mileage goal for December: 80 miles, to put me at running the year in miles for the first time.

Real goals: Get healthy. Run 8K cross country on December 9 at Club Nationals. We don't need no steenkin' speed goal, just finish the race.

So in Sept I started with 1 mile runs and between then and end of Oct I worked my way to running 2 miles and occasionally 3. In Nov I decided to only run no less than 3 milers. I only once had to cut off at 2 due to an "emergency". A couple times I bumped up to 3.5 miles. I still basically never run a full mile without some type of break, even just .05 walking, but usually I'm running like 2.5 of 3 miles if you take out the walking breaks. I average anywhere from 11-12:30 pace with the walking breaks and I think for now I'm fine with that. Maybe one day I'll run again without breaks but I dunno. Anyway, plan for Dec is to start trying a few 4 mile runs. Haven't run 4 miles since April. At which time 4 miles was not a long run but it will be my long run for this Dec :-p I think for now I'd rather increase overall endurance than worry about a few little walk breaks. I'm sure if I lost weight it would help.

31 miles and more consistency are the goals for December.

I think I actually ran twice in November.

I’d best set a target in furlongs. Then I can a) pretend to be a racehorse and b) it sounds better

Last month I set my goal as miles of walking plus running. This month I'm going to try to keep track of how much actual running I do. My husband and I have been running three days a week and strength training three days a week, with one day of rest, and it's just too much, so we are planning to do three days running and two strength, then two days rest, alternating with two days running and three strength, then two rest, so our total runs will be fewer. I definitely need two days of rest in a row, so I get at least one day when nothing hurts!

Making allowances for the weather, holidays, and how much we run, I'm going to say 50k (31 miles).

St Jude 5k coming up Dec. 2