Hi friends! We’re back from vacation (recap coming soon, I promise) and settling into the summer routine (it’s an awesome routine, for now, since it’s 9:45 a.m. and I’m chilling at home with some coffee). Did you enjoy the three guest posts while I was gone? Thanks again to Logan, Tina, and Rachel for filling in with your awesomeness!

Vacation was a blast and provided some needed rest for my body (I ran almost every day, but only 5-7 miles. Also, humidity is evil). Now I’ve got 15 weeks until the Colorado Fall Classic Marathon, so it’s time to kick my training into high gear. Though I’d been building mileage and incorporating some marathon-specific workouts for a few weeks pre-vacation, today was the first on-the-schedule run, so it feels like the “official” start of training.

Now that it’s official, I want to lay out my goals and plans for this training cycle. I’m really mostly writing this post for accountability for myself, so if you don’t really care, I won’t be offended… come back later this week for lots of beach and flower pictures like this:

Here are my goals:

• Train on downhills and trails. This race is all downhill. Check out this elevation chart (from the race’s website):
  If I don’t specifically train downhill, my quads are going to burn out way too fast, and I will gimp my way to the finish instead of finishing strong. I’d really like to run the Slacker Half Marathon this month to gauge how the steady downhill will feel and give me an idea of a suitable marathon goal time, but I’m not sure if it’s going to work out. It’s on our anniversary, and also I’m broke because we just took an awesome vacation.
  I also need to run some trails. The marathon is not a trail race, but I have this crazy relay coming up in July, so I need to get my trail skills at least kind of up to par. (Colorado friends: Who wants to run some trails with me? Or some long downhills?)
• Strength train, stretch, and foam roll. I enjoyed the Nike Training Club program I did last month, and it was really convenient to do my strength workouts at home during those last few busy busy weeks of school. But I’m ready to get back into the gym (believe it or not). My goal for each week is to do two full-body, in-the-gym strength workouts and three core, stretching, and foam rolling workouts at home. Next week, the 8 a.m. summer course I’m teaching at the local community college begins, which means I probably won’t have time to do the core and stretching stuff right after runs on those days. That’s not ideal, but I figure that doing it later is better than not doing it at all.
• Figure out nutrition and hydration for during the race. As this will be my seventh marathon, you might think I had the nutrition and hydration thing figured out. I do not, and it’s definitely affected my performances. Since this race is in September, too, it might still be toasty out, which will also affect my hydration and electrolyte needs.
• Recover smart. If you read Tina’s guest post last week, you know why this is so important. But I’m really bad about proper post-workout nutrition. And stretching. And foam rolling. But if I want to get faster and stay healthy, I’ve got to recover properly, so that’s a major goal this time.
• Eat smart in general. I’m going to start using my LoseIt app again to make sure I’m eating enough calories and the right macronutrient ratios (carb needs increase as mileage increases). It’s also important that those calories are coming from high-quality sources — whole grains, veggies and fruits, nuts, and lean proteins, not sugary desserts, cheesy appetizers, and wine (all of which I indulged in on vacation).

  

  So those are my goals and priorities this training cycle. Keep me accountable, friends, okay?

What’s your favorite indulgence?

Any tips for downhill running? 

Anything important in your life that I missed while I was gone? I’ve tried to read up on the blogs I missed, but there are just too many posts!