Spring Running Goals

I'm so excited Ashley has started Move it Monday up again!  I always enjoyed reading the other exercise and healthy eating related posts and looked forward to writing about it myself on Mondays.  So I'm linking up today!

I'm already looking forward to spring.  Although the weather we're having right now is tricking me into thinking spring is right around the corner when we still have half of January and the whole month of February to get through (but February means Valentine's Day and I LOVE Valentine's day, but that's a post for another day).  I seriously have a mild battle I face every winter with Seasonal Affective Disorder.  Last week when it was frigidly cold I was so depressed and in a funk about being back at work and missing Carter.  This week with suddenly warm temps I'm be bopping around, singing a merry tune, and flipping through pictures and videos of Carter on my phone whenever I get the chance.  I feel like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.  One's my winter personality and the other is my personality during all other seasons.  But I got off track talking about the weather.  I'm not just looking forward to spring for the weather, but also for the running.  Right now is perfect timing to start planning out my spring races and ramping my training up accordingly.

I can't quite decide what I want to focus on for the spring.  I'm dead set on running under 21 minutes in the 5K.  Mostly because I ran a 21:05 in November before my second fall half-marathon and then after a bit of a hiatus from hard training a 21:20 on New Year's Eve/Day.  I know I have a sub-21 in there, it's just tapping into it!  And let me tell ya, it's been a LONG time since I've run under 21 minutes.  Off the top of my head I'd say it was about 4ish years ago before I met Ty and my priorities changed.  Back before running turned into 2 miles here and there throughout the week.

For some reason the half-marathon has always been my baby.  To me it's the perfect combination of distance and speed.  I love it.  You get that long run runner's high afterward without the week long hobbling limp of a marathon.  I tend to choose focusing on the half-marathon over other race distances every single time.  Now I'm at a cross roads because if I focus on the half I want to run a new postpartum PR (I'm not even going to pretend an all-time PR is anywhere in the near future).  That would mean beating my time of 1:36:51, an average of 7:21 pace per mile.  That's a stout order and I'm not sure if I'm up to the challenge.  And honestly the 5K is always a safe bet because if I have a bad race, I can just pick up another 5K the next weekend.  Have a bad half-marathon?  I'd want to wait at least 2-3 weeks before running another and then you have to find another one and it has to be open and it can't be super expensive.  There are always 5Ks going on, so it's just a safe bet. 

Once I kick off my long runs and put tempo runs back into my daily routine I'll have a better idea which goal I want to focus on.  But even as I write this I feel the half-marathon calling my name.  Plus, who knows, maybe I'll run a sub-21 minute 5K in February and then that wouldn't make a very good goal for the spring!

And you all know I can't write a post without including pictures of our precious, little man, so here ya go!  Oh, and I almost forgot, I've changed my blog settings (I didn't realize they were set differently) so anyone can make comments on posts even without a blogger account!  So go on and make me feel loved with a comment! 

Playing peek-a-boo with daddy while daddy showered.

Carter loves mirrors and if I looked like him I would too!