Celebrate Your Success: February Goals Check In

Celebrate Your Success: February 2016 Goals Check In

Yes, it’s March 10 and I’m just now getting around to sharing my February goals check-in. Better a third of the way through the next month than never, right? Right! It’s never too late to celebrate your success! 

I purposefully delayed my February 2016 goals check in post until this week because I wanted to include the Lake Sammamish Half Marathon. Even though the race is in March, a sub-1:40 half marathon was such a large goal for 2016 that I wanted to assess it as immediately as possible. Plus, I didn’t want to make myself anxious before the race by thinking too much about it in relation to my big goal for the year.

Last month’s goal check in focused on the theme of believing in your own ability to succeed. This month, the takeaway from my goals is to take time and celebrate your success. For many of us who are goal-oriented, it becomes too easy to just rush on to the next goal or downplay what we did, rather than cherish and celebrate what we accomplish.

Celebrate Your Success: February 2016 Goals Check In

2016 Running Goals: February Progress Report

Run a Sub-1:40 Half Marathon

If you read yesterday’s race recap, you know that I ran a 1:38:40. So this goal is accomplished for the year! Now what?

I’m eager already for another half for the summer or fall, preferably one on the Eastside or in Snoqualmie/North Bend. Eating a homecooked meal, sleeping in our own bed, and having only a short drive on race morning definitely made race day so much less stressful and more successful for me. Oh, and on a Saturday would be nice. There are several options for a fall half in the Seattle area.

So we’ll see when it comes to that time! Right now I just want to celebrate that 1:38 half marathon before setting another goal.

PR in the Marathon

Part of the reason I felt Hansons was not the appropriate plan for me was because I need to train holistically. Hansons was too much monotony, both in terms of the workouts and that all I felt like I did was run, run, and run some more. I love running (obviously), but I thrive (and run better) when I have more balance and can fully enjoy Pilates and hiking (and strength train, but right now I can’t quite use the word “enjoy” for that because I’m sort of enjoying my race week/recovery week break from it).

This training cycle I want to incorporate some light trail running (nothing too technical, but some decent hills), drills, strength training, hiking, Pilates, and a variety of marathon pace, tempo, and interval training.

Plus, this time I want to run at least two 20 milers to prepare my muscles, mind, and stomach optimally for the demands of the marathon, but I also don’t want to exhaust myself over marathon training. You start with as little as you need to do as appropriate for the distance, you know? There’s no point in jumping into 70 mile weeks yet when (1) that doesn’t mesh with my other goals and (2) I’ve yet to really see what I can achieve on 55 mile weeks.

Nutrition will play a more significant role this time, particularly in making sure I eat enough calories and carbohydrates to support my training. I also want to experiment a bit more with high-low training.

I’ll start training in April, so my focus for March will be crafting this plan. I definitely felt that my half marathon specific training in February built a great base of endurance and speed for marathon training, in addition to helping me determine what works best for my individual physiology.

Hike the Snoqualmie to Stevens Portion of the Pacific Crest Trail

We really haven’t done any hard hiking yet this year, so at those point we’re just eager to get into shorter backpacking trips of 15-30 miles. Maybe 2016 will be the year for a 75 mile trip, or maybe we just build up to it gradually. Ryan and I are both quite eager to start backpacking again. The mountains are calling…but they’re also currently buried under feet of snow, which makes for fun adventures but is not ideal for long backpack trips.

Master My Fueling and Hydration

I spent February knee-deep in research on fueling, hydration, and nutrition for running, along with experimenting with my pre, mid, and post run fueling. It paid off: as I talked about in yesterday’s post on fueling and hydration for racing, I ran a strong half marathon with no bonking, negative splits, and no GI distress.

So, as marathon training begins in April, I’ll focus on applying what worked for me in the training and racing of the half for the longer, more difficult to fuel distance of the marathon.

Many of you know that I left a career of teaching and research behind, but I still love both of those. For a while a little idea floated in the back of my head about starting an e-course, but of course I found excuses not to until Ryan just told me to start it. Even if no one signs up, at least it’s there!

Master Your Fueling and Hydration

So this month I’m launching a Master Your Fueling and Hydration 6 Week e-Course for runners! After spending so much time and energy learning about fueling and hydration for myself, I want to share this knowledge and help other runners achieve their goals. You can learn more about the e-course here and sign up with the button below!
SIGN UP NOW!

Grow My Coaching Business

I took on a few new clients in February, which of course is very exciting! As much as I enjoy working towards my own running goal, I even more so love working with other runners to help them achieve their goals. 

I’ll also be training Meredith for the Long Island Half Marathon in May. She won the coaching giveaway in December and is such a strong and consistent runner. I’m thrilled to be working with her. She would totally crush the marathon, but since she didn’t get the NYC Marathon lottery we opted to aim for a fast spring half marathon.

I’m still taking new clients and would love to help you run your personal best and achieve your goals! Learn more about my coaching services and email me ([email protected]) if you have any questions or are interested. 

Expand my Pilates Practice

Despite neglecting any semblance of a yoga practice, I experienced less training fatigue and aches than previous training cycles, and I think it’s because of Pilates helping me stretch and strengthen more than yoga. Not to bash yoga: I think it’s a great addition for runners, but Pilates just happens to work better for me. I’m not very flexible and I have low mobility in my shoulders and hips, which is why yoga has always been a bit of a struggle for me.

I noticed during the Lake Sammamish Half Marathon that good form (upright posture, relaxed shoulders, strong core) came more easily to me, even in those last couple miles of the race where my form used to completely fall apart. On hiking trips, I’ve experienced less back discomfort from my backpack (upgrading our bags admittedly helped also) and better stability. 

I still am thoroughly enjoying the Pilatesology workouts. I haven’t signed up for a full membership as I hope to soon yet because I’m haven’t gotten bored with the free ones. I appreciate their emphasis on form, the variety, and all those push ups. Running will prepare my endurance for the marathon and backpacking, but Pilates is going to be what keeps my core, glutes, and upper back strong enough for those goals. 

The only downside? I miss the days of teaching Pilates. It’s not realistic at all for me to be certified: the classes are so expensive and honestly certification is not a goal of mine, but I still miss that job, even though it’s been five years since I taught. 

Freelance Writing

I had my first article published (a reposting of a blog post) on the Women’s Running Magazine website. I could not believe it and probably went back and re-read it 20 times because it felt so surreal to see my name on such a large website. I’m working on more articles to submit there and other places, so fingers crossed!

Celebrate Your Success: February 2016 Goals Check In

Last month I set a mini-goal for February to believe in my own ability to succeed and encouraged you to do the same. So what’s the mini-goal for March? Celebrate your success, no matter how small, and use the momentum to dream bigger and work harder.

[Tweet “Celebrate your successes! How are you doing on achieving your #running #goals? via @thisrunrecipes #fitfluential #sweatpink”]

Share with me some of the successes, big or small, that you’re celebrating!
How are you doing in achieving your 2016 goals?

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13 Responses

  1. You had a really great month! Congrats on getting your article published! Lately I have just been struggling to start adding back in some harder workouts, so each time I accomplish one of those its a success. Hopefully I can be consistent with those workouts now that the weather is improving!

    1. Thank you so much! Great job on all of your harder workouts – especially those ones at 10K pace, 10K pace is always hard! I bet you’ll find no problem being consistent, especially once nice spring weather rolls in!

  2. I saw the womens running post and shared immediately! so exciting. i love that we are training now for the half! i never followed a plan before and am really enjoying it this week so far! i would love it if you tried pure barre online at some point – curious to see what you think of it since it’s a mix of strength, barre, pilates and yoga

    1. Thank you so much for sharing it! I actually saw your share before I saw theirs – which made me even more excited! I should try some Pure barre – thanks for the suggestion! -, especially since I am just so bad about strength training recently. I did Barre 3 years ago but Pure Barre seems more challenging and strengthening. I’m going to hop over to your blog for some workout ideas/links!

  3. Congrats on so much success. You’re slaying ’em all! I think I will do well in my half next Sunday (the 20th). I’m hoping, anyway. I’ve been working SO HARD on my tempo runs, speed work etc and it will feel so good to see it pay off.

    1. GIRL I am SO excited for you to run a half marathon! Which one are you doing so I can stalk you on a race day? You’ve been working so hard and absolutely killing those tempo workouts. It will definitely pay off for you!

  4. Congrats on getting your article published!! A lot of this resonates with me – as a fellow goal oriented person I also have trouble just stopping and smelling the roses and letting myself enjoy the success. It’s always “great…now what?” It sounds weird but it took a while for me to really appreciate the fact that I had just shaved 15 minutes off my marathon time in 9 months. I think as runners who surround ourselves with other runners, it’s hard not to constantly think about improvement and getting faster and the next PR. Being friends with people who run marathons and ultras just for fun makes it so easy to forget what an accomplishment it is to finish a half or a full or any race.

    My goal is to get more into real hiking this summer.

    1. Thank you so much, Hanna! I’m glad you took a lot away from the article. 15 minutes is an enormous marathon PR and you should be so proud of that! It is hard to step back when we’re in such a competitive community, which definitely has its benefits but also goal-oriented people like us can get swept away. Half marathons are shorter are always accomplishments in my book – especially those shorter races where so much training goes into just a few short minutes of truly pushing oneself to the max!
      And I know some pretty awesome hikes you can do this summer 😉

  5. Wow, you’re a busy lady! Awesome job on your goals, too. I have zero running goals as I’m literally 1 month away from having my first baby right now but you better believe I’m excited to get back to it as soon as doc gives me the go ahead!

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