Establishing My Training Schedule

My plan this year is to HAVE a plan for my training runs. Last year, aside from just doing my job every day and getting in my normal 5 workouts per week, the only real training runs consisted of an 8-mile run at Anderson's Shadyside Park and a 10-mile treadmill run. I kinda winged it the day of the mini because I had previously done a 5K race (the Big 10 Hoops Day 5K--see pictures) and realized, "Hey! Adrenaline on race-day is better than any training runs you could ever do!" Which I still believe is partly true:)

This year, however, the plan has been to increase my long runs by one mile each week starting with a 5-mile run on Friday, February 27. I had hoped to start sooner, however things were delayed with a minor knee injury. (For those who don't know the story, I was foolishly trying to replicate an exercise I saw on "Biggest Loser." That show has given me so many good training ideas, so when I saw a 300 pound person jump from the ground onto an upside-down BOSU ball, I thought, why can't I?? Turns out...I can't. I made the jump a solid 5-6 times, then on the last jump, I fell forward off the BOSU and landed on my right knee which was bent 90 degrees to the right. OUCH! So for 3 weeks after that incident, I could do no cardio except for cycling which put minimal impact on the leg.)

If I stick with the current plan of increasing my mileage by one per week, that will put me at running a full 13 miles 2 weeks before the actual mini. I want to gauge the time of that practice run to see if it will even be possible for me to beat last year's time. Then for the 2 weeks before the mini, I will do shorter runs and hopefully rest up for race day!

My weekly schedule of exercise looks like this:

• Monday: 45 mins to 1-hour of pure cardio followed by abs (lately it's been either spin classes or a mixture of different cardio machines)
• Tuesday: 1-hour of strength/cardio circuits (usually workouts from Jillian Michael's Hot Bod in a Box)
• Wednesday: 25 mins of teaching cycle, occasionally 30 minutes of teaching a strength class, then one hour of my own cardio
• Thursday: 45-min stability ball strength class, 45-min total body challenge class
• Friday: light cardio OR Hatha yoga class OR skip the workout and go out to lunch with one of my best friends/co-workers :) Sometimes, I just NEED to get out of the gym for my break!
• Saturday or Sunday: Long training run
• Other day of the weekend: rest