The Next Twelve Weeks

Posted by Lauren

Remember how Nicole blogged about her workout plan last week? Well, she forgot to mention one tiny thing: I created a 12-week plan, emailed it to her, and then she adapted it to her schedule. No credit, man. :(

Well, my 3 month workout plan officially started today. From October – December, I will stick to my plan as best as possible. (And then I’ll have to adapt it for ski season January – April! Can’t wait!)

Why am I doing this? Life slowed down a bit, I’m settled into my new place, and I want to get faster. I’m kind of lazy lately and I know I can do more if I just hunker down and follow something.

How will this work?

• Sunday- Long Run (between 1.5-2 hours) and Strength Training #1
• *Monday- Treadmill Hike (30 mins) and Strength Training #2
• Tuesday- Recovery Run (slow pace, 5-7 miles), core workout, and Ballet at night
• *Wednesday- Speed Work/Intervals (400s, 1000s, or 600s – more info later)
• Thursday- Tempo Run (30-60 mins), Ballet at night
• *Friday- Easy Run (3 miles) and Strength Training #3
• Saturday- Rest day… we’ll see what happens. Pick up anything I slacked on during the week?
• *bike to work Monday, Wednesday, Friday

I combined a handful of sources to create an extremely detailed Excel spreadsheet:

1. Hal Higdon’s Advanced Half Marathon training plan and his Cross Country Summer training program
2. Tina’s Best Body Bootcamp workouts (Round 2)
3. This post from Sarah OUA(L)
4. My ballet studio’s schedule
5. This treadmill timetable Janae (HRG) posted
6. What I know about work, social life, sleep needs….
7. When Hulu adds new episodes to their website. You think I’m kidding?

When I look at the big picture, I know that I can handle this plan as long as I go to bed on time! On that note, here’s a quick recap of day ONE:

Week 1 – Sunday

Scheduled: 1.5 hour long run. Run the first 75% at a comfortable pace and the last 25% at race pace; finish with Tina’s 1A strength training workout.

Completed: treadmill run (outlined below) followed by 3 sets of upper/lower/full body supersets

• 5:00 minute warm up
• 67:30 at 7.2 mph (8:20)
• 22:30 at 7.8 mph (7:42)
• 5:00 minute cool down

Sweet Spot: Although 1:30 on a treadmill seemed daunting, it was nice to watch the 49ers game in its entirety. Why not run outside? For now I prefer the treadmill for its consistency with mph; during these first few weeks, most of my runs will be on the treadmill to get a better handle on my speed.

Sticky Spot: It actually was not the strength training, believe it or not. Although I haven’t lifted a dumbbell since the end of July, that part wasn’t too bad. The hardest part was speeding up the last 25% of my run to race pace. I literally counted down every single minute until “cool down.”

So, what’s next? I would like to get in the habit of writing short blog posts that summarize my workouts. They’ll be quick check-ins to keep me accountable and inspired. I do 95% of my blogging from the WordPress phone app anyways, so it shouldn’t be too difficult to stick to it. Hopefully those don’t bore you to tears. Our older posts are more focused on fitness and I kind of miss that :( Although, I do prefer to “journal” fun social activities and tasty meals. I’m going to stop blabbering now, goodnight!

Question: How do you get out of bed the FIRST time your alarm goes off? I need to stop the ‘snooze’ button if I want to accomplish any of this!!

-Lauren