Febraury Plan: Prepping for the Big Race!

So I still had no idea what I was going to do here.  I have April’s plan in the bag already, and while I’m SUPER excited for it, February is not the right month for it.  March is always a month of sheer survival, since everyone’s birthdays happen in a 3 week window and the parties and revelry barely cease, though I have an idea there too.  This month is problematic.  It’s too cold and gets dark too early to spend a lot of time outside.  I really want to make another month of good progress – the closer I am to 150 by my birthday the better, because, as I said before, March is rough.

So I signed up for the Mardi Gras 5k tonight – woohoo, first race ever (not counting the 400 meter dash in 8th grade)!  I can run the distance in my sleep (for example, tonight, I ran the distance tonight after 15 minutes on cybil the arc trainer and an hour of weights), and I have run at least that far twice outside, but I’d like to work a little more on making good time outside.  My goal is under 30 minutes.  That’s more than feasable pushing myself on a treadmill, but we’ll see how it goes on race day.  The most important thing for me to do is finish, and have a time to improve upon.

So, I have a race to run.  I also did an almost-rest week last week, which actually ended up being a pretty active time, and found that it wasn’t the end of the world that I didn’t do heavy weights, skipped a few weight sessions in favor of cardio, and didn’t do intervals.  So, since I’m focusing on running a race this month, I’m going to give some of the rest of my program a rest, or at least vary it up a bit.

After much deliberating, this is the plan, which as usual, I reserve the right to change it at a moment’s whim:

Day 1: 15 minutes arc trainer, full body strength (at gym), 30 minute treadmill run

Day 2: 60 minute outside run, yoga

Day 3:  45 minutes DDR, full body strength (at home)

Day 4: 60 minute outside run, yoga

The week of the race, I will do a test 5k on Day 2, and skip day 4 since it’s race day.  I’ve eliminated one day of gym weights – my muscles seem to actually be doing better by giving them a week of recovery, so maybe a month of relaxing the weight training will do me good.  I’ve also eliminated my intervals for the month.  I’m sort of sick of them, and would rather start doing them again when I can run them at the track outside, and do real HIIT.

I am also going to try to participate in Charlotte’s challenge this month, because it will be good for my soul.  But I’m starting tomorrow…