Running into 2011

We are a day in and I already feel like I'm behind!  Since Husband and I are off from work for the holidays, we decided to take the kids and do some fun things yesterday instead of me being the responsible mom type person who should have stayed home and gotten the house and my life ready to go back to work on Monday.  Oh well.  We had fun doing it!  And, I blackmailed got everyone to help me clean up Christmas when we were done.  It looks a lot less crowded around here now!

Husband and I before our New Year's Run.  It was 29ºF, which is frigid for our part of the country!

Did you run Friday into Saturday?  Sadly, I fell asleep and had to be woken up by Husband and practically jumped into my running clothes to make it so I would be running at midnight!  Long gone are the days when I could stay up as long as I wanted!  But, we did make it out to run (yay) and it was neat as always running through our neighborhood with the Christmas lights on and people out wishing "Happy New Year".  There were fireworks involved this year as well since my state just legalized them.  There were quite a few people out showing their appreciation with small explosions for the new year!

If you participated in the Team Brenton run, please email your photos to me at teambrenton4 (at) gmail (dot) com so that I can recognize you and get them posted here. 

Goals for 2011:

*Run 1000 miles.  Yes, it sounds like a lot, but I have broken it down and it calculates out to just under 20 miles per week.  I was only 150 miles away from this goal in 2009, so I know it is possible, I just have to (mostly) get my lazy self out of bed in the mornings and do it!  I am going to sign up for the challenge at Tall Mom's blog to keep me motivated! I believe she is opening the registration on 1/3/11.

* Cross train.  This is an ugly word for me.  I don't mind the activity once I am doing it, I just hate taking time away from running to do it.  My choices for cross training that I am committing to are swimming and spinning.  I am going to alternate weeks of going to swim laps and spin class.  I don't want to commit to both in the same week... yet.  Let's see how this goes.  It will probably be the hardest thing I do this year.

* Continue Pilates.  I've been doing it four months now, and while I am not any good at it, I think it's making me a stronger runner, hence my Turkey Trot 5K PR... which really happened without much other training on my part. 

* Run a 5K in under 24 minutes.  Can I shave 8 seconds off my time this year?

* Plan for a marathon.  I have a long standing goal with myself to run a marathon before I'm 40.  Thirty eight is happening this year.  I think it's time to figure out which one, how to pay for it, and, most importantly, how to do the 16 weeks leading up to the marathon without sending my family into a complete tailspin!

Off and running!  Here's to a fit and fast 2011!