It's all in the planning

Once a month might be my new schedule for blog posting.  Time will tell.

Life is pretty boring from a running blog standpoint at the moment.  I try to run, my calves tighten up, I speed up, slow down or stop, depending on the day.  I have good weeks of running with about 21 miles in a week, and bad weeks of running with much less.

This was a good week.  Finish Line of the Field of Heroes 5K.
First end of race with both kiddos?

For the first time in a long time, I have no races scheduled or paid for.  No definitive training plan to follow.  I'm running what I can, when I can, and trying to be satisfied with that. Instead, I'm dreaming about running marathons through malls.  Some of these dream marathons require answering trivia questions before you can cross the finish line.  Ha.  What can I say?

Did any involve stamps and hershey kisses at the finish line?  I'd run for that!

So?  How do I deal with this whole no training plan thing?  First, I print out a Calendar that starts in December 2014 and goes through November 2016. Then, I start sketching out a "Baby-to-50 miler" training plan.  Totally normal, right?  I've had a 50 mile race on my short bucket list for some time now, but always knew a pregnancy was hoped for, so I put it off.  For those of you who have run 50 mile races, I'm open to suggestions for races and/or training plans.  At the moment, I'm eyeballing the Chicago Lakefront 50/50 that is scheduled for November 1st this year.  End-of-October, beginning of November time frame seems ideal for my current plan, gives me approximately two years to both rebuild my pre-baby mileage base and then to build to a 50 miler.

Other races I'm eyeballing for post baby?  The Xenia Half Marathon next April followed by the Columbus Marathon in October.   I also hope to pace Cap City again in May, and plan to run Boulder Half in October with my deferred-due-to-floods free entry.

As long as I can fly the plane, race wherever you want Mommy!

While I'm in the dream race-planning mode - what was your favorite race and why?  Any races that I should consider during my 2 year plan?  I could need a few September/early October marathons to run as training runs while building for the 50 miler.

Hopefully, I'll still like running next year.  :)