Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Tis the Season!

Happy Wednesday, friends!  It's a balmy 12 degrees today in upstate New York...brr.  Perfect for sitting here with a cup of ginger tea (no snackies!) and contemplating the season.  No, I'm not suffering from brain freeze.  Christmas is done (thank goodness, says my tummy!), but it's time to think about the next season....RACING SEASON!
See, I'm not terribly a winter person.  (I know, i need to relocate).  I'll suffer through cold and running with multiple layers, but bring on Spring and the start of running/triathlon season, already!
Well, I took the first step to make the season a bit more real...I signed up or my first 2012 race, the Buffalo Half Marathon! Super excited about this.  It's memorial day weekend, and we have a friend that lives in B-Lo, so we'll make a nice weekend out of it.  It's a race I've never run, and for $35 including pasta dinner, tech shirt, training shirt, medal and post race brunch, I'll take it! 
So....2012.  It's time for a change.  I've been a go go go with distance racing since 2008, and this year I've decided to take a step back and focus on running short and mid distances.  I'm trying to look at races I either haven't done or haven't done in quite awhile (my 5k PR is 5 years old...that's the last time I ran a 5k!) and hopefully work on some speed!  Here's my tentative race schedule so far (it'll go up on my race page soon):

 Race Season 2012

Summerfest 2010
 February:  Dahlgren Trail Half Marathon (King George, VA)
March: Johnny’s ROTG 5 miler
April 1: Spring Forward 15k
May: Lilac 10k, Buffalo Half Marathon
June: Mendon Mauler 12 miler
July:  Shoreline Tri Relay (with the hubster and Dad G....I'm the runner!)
September: Fleet Feet 12k (Labor Day weekend)
October: Hospice 10 miler (oldie but goodie!)

Quite a few holes still, and I need some 5ks and a few more halves sprinkled in, but it's a good framework :-)  I kicked off my race season planning with some speed work on the treadmill.... 4x800 repeats with warm up and cool down for a nice 4 miles.  Not at a pace I'm thrilled with yet, but it's a start!
Brrr!  Now it just needs to warm up!!
Have you started planning your 2012 season yet?  What's on the horizon for you?


3 comments:

  1. Move out of this tundra while you are young! Just do it! I'm still living in this crazy cold weather after many opportunities to get out. There were always reasons that held me back but I really wished I made the move. Someday my husband and I will move to warmth year round. This weather is not condusive for consistent tri training outside. I hear you that it's cold. I bundled up like a snowman for my run today and trudged through the snow covered streets yeasterday. Great race schedule - im in the process of drafting my plan for the year.

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  2. I hear you on suffering through runs wearing multiple layers (I'm from WI and hate treadmills). Think spring!

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  3. I signed up for 2 major (for me!) 2012 races in 2011: Wildflower Tri in May - olympic distance - and then Boulder 70.3 in August. And training sort of officially started too!
    I do want to sign up for 2 more spring races, and then sit back and see what I feel like.
    I do love the planning, looking at different options, trying to think about what the year is going to look like for one race or another.

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