Thursday, December 27, 2007

Planning Next Year

Well, next year is on the horizon. I'll do a post on Monday about goals met this year and goals for next year, but I'm already in the planning stages for next year.

I definitely want to focus on running some longer short races in the immediate future because Houston has available 10Kish distances all over the place from January-March every year. I've always wanted to run the Beach run down at Galveston for Mardi Gras, and Mardi Gras comes early this year, so that'll be my January race. Then 5 miles in February and another 10K in March. On my B list for the first quarter (and thus not reflected yet in my sidebar) are the Buffalo Wallow XC 6K, the Bayou City Classic 10K, the Law Week 8K, and the Bellaire Trolley Trot 5K.

My other simultaneous focus will be on the Lone Star Sprint Triathlon in late March. Work stuff may prevent me from actually registering for the thing, but I really really want to try for a tri (or several) this year, so I've decided to follow a modified version of this 10 week plan available at Tri Newbies Online. I'm basically going to modify it to make it more run intensive for the 10Ks, but I can conceive going for more distance in the pool too. My biggest fear heading into a tri is the bike. While I'm fairly confident that I have the 12 mile distance in me, I've been riding on stationary bikes of various types, and not on an actual bike. The last time I was on a bike, my comfort level just wasn't very high, so my goal and challenge for this 10 week plan is to develop a level of comfort on my bike and not to ride those miles indoors. If I can't make the Lone Star Tri, I'll try for the CBI Tri in the Woodlands in May (which I'll probably do either way anyways).

The last quarter (ok, well maybe third) of the year will be half marathon training. The middle two quarters are up for grabs, but maybe a bike-focused quarter and then a swim focus? That might work because a swim focus could easily bleed into or overlap with running when I start upping the mileage for the half marathon....

I love planning!!!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

A word of advice:

Don't make any overly confident, cocky New Year's Resolutions (like 'I will have sex every night in the New Year,' or 'I'll never live with my parents again'). I learned the hard way; those always turn out bad.

Note: When I left my job, I never said anything like "I'm never going to work here again!"

Amber said...

My new year's rez last year worked pretty well for me (see Dec 31's post when it is up...), but this year, I think I'm going to go for "goals" instead of resolutions. I can't believe I'm saying it, but I'm happy enough with myself to not need a resolution right now. But there will definitely be fitness goals, which I'll blog on January 1. But they'll be well thought out, not flashy. ;-)

Come back, and maybe you'll be working with me... :-)