The Week Wayyy out of town!

This week I am in Madison, WI for training, and those are the weeks where I usually struggle with keeping a routine. Not this week! Sunday did a three mile run before driving here, and tonight finished my 3+ miles doing intervals today. Tomorrow I implement one part of the P90X routine that is so popular, the Core Workout. Wendsday I plan on running 3-4 miles, and then Thursday a short run, with the P90X Ab Ripper unless I'm too beat up from the previous few days...in that case Ill move the P90X to Saturday. Friday I still have class and have to drive home, so that day will be way too long to exercise. Ill probably need day off by then.

Its great to finally get some traction back from the time off. I am excited about the race season coming up, although already my April race may be in jeapordy. I usually go on a fishing trip at the end of the month and the race I really wanted to run was the day I was leaving for Mexico. I scheduled a different race (a 15 miler no less) but that is the day I'm supposed to be fishing, and I don't think I want to give that up. I guess the most important thing is I got back into it. My heatrate is slowly starting to come back down. In the height of running, my resting heartrate was in the 50's, and slowly climbed up into the 70's the more time I took off. Now its starting its reverse trend, and when I run, most of it isnt in the 90% and above zone. (although there is still a little too much) It will take some time to get back where I was, but taught me a valuable lesson about taking too much time off!

First Week of the New Year!!

Well, I had made a decision coming into the New Year that I would restart my running routine. This week has just started, but am well on my way. I ran 3 miles on Tuesday and 4 miles today. In addition, Monday I added 35 minutes of core training. This I'm going to switch up by doing the Core Workouts and the Ab-Ripper included in the P90x routine. My wife is doing the whole routine for her jump back into fitness. I enjoy running too much and don't have enough time to do both the running and P90x, so Ill just adjust the core workout instead.

As for plans for the upcoming year, I have tenatively planned on running a half marathon in Kalamazoo, Michigan in April, a half in March located in Grand Rapids, Michigan, a half in June in Charlevoix, Michigan. Then in July, I will probably run either a 5 or 15k in the National Cherry Festival. Those are just the races to get me going when the full swing starts. Ultimately, I hope to run the Grand Rapids Marathon in October. (that's the plan) After I accomplish this, I will start looking at running the bigger venue events such as Detroit, Chicago or New York. Grand Rapids is a very flat race, and Ill likely need all the help I can get. (nothing like a hill at mile 20 to throw you a curve)

Nutrition wise, I'm watching more of what I'm eating now....at least more then I was! In the two month period off, I gained about 8-10 pounds. This was to be expected, and its also winter up here. I hope by Marathon time to be in the high 160's to low 170's. That may end up being a little on the skinny side, but well see where it ends up.

I think that's it for now. Ill post about once a week from now on. Now that I've jumped on the exercise bandwagon, its going too fast to jump off now!