9 Days Gone. January 2011

I can't believe the days are already flying by, and I seriously need to get back in the groove (aka training mode) for all the events I have planned for the year.

Here's the list:
5-31 Bolder Boulder 10K
6-5 Steamboat 1/2 Marathon
7-31 San Francisco Marathon
10-18 Denver 1/2 Marathon

I learned from my injury last year that I can only run 1 full marathon per year, and add shorter events in between to keep the motivation going.
I sent my application to become a Team Captain for Team In Training and got accepted! I'm so excited about this, not only because I'll contribute to such a great cause and get to help people reach their goal of fundraising and completing an event, but because I'll get to see a lot of the same faces from my very 1st TNT event; my coach Andy, who's super awesome and so encouraging, who even got me some nutella packs to go for the race (he knows of my love of nutella after running); my best running buddy Erin, who kept me company in all long runs AND the marathon!; Holly who's faster than me, and super friendly southern lady; Whitney, who's an example of dedication, great energy and courage, our hero!; Stephon who's our personal cheerleader, and stayed with me through the worst run of my season, and kept me from crying (seriously!), I'm excited he's going to be our assist. coach!.  Ashley, our office contact.. I've lost track how many times I e-mailed her or called her with questions, and she always replied with a smile.  Everyone at the TNT office is just great! I'm proud and excited to continue my journey with them.

So for training...what to do what to do??
My official training season starts February 6th with the Team, so in the meantime, I'm keeping the mileage short, basically doing maintenance runs, while trying to keep my new running bud's pace (hopefully this will start preparing me and making me a bit faster? I can only hope).

So far the plan will include, yoga 6 days a week for at least 1hr a day, but I may increase to 3hrs a day as the mileage increases (specially after the long run).  The reason is simple, yoga will lengthen the muscles back to their natural state after the pounding from running, thus avoiding injury (this was the formula for the San Diego Marathon and I ran the whole race minus injuries of any kind).

It will probably look something like this;

*Monday: Spin-Sculpt (spin for 30 min followed by yoga with weights for 30 min) + 1hr of yoga OR Mountain Warrior on the real Ryders' bikes (1 1/2 hr workout that includes: spinning, cardio blast training and boxing)
*Tuesday: Easy run 3 to 5 miles + 1 hr of yoga
*Wednesday: Track work + 1 hr of yoga
*Thursday: Spin- Yoga
*Friday: Yoga
*Saturday: Long Run + Long Yoga
*Sunday: Rest Day

I'm sure this will look entirely different once the training gets going, but at least that's a plan... I may run a bit more during the week, or I may not, it all depends on my right knee, that in reality is my S.I Joint on the left side that starts acting up.
Also, I may switch track work to hill training every other week.  I have the good fortune of having Red Rocks Amphitheater as my training ground for hills, and since I have to conquer all the hills in San Francisco (at least the ones during the 1st 10 miles), I need to be better prepared than the 1st time I ran them.

Here's a picture of Red Rocks... in all its glory!

We will see how the year starts shaping up.!