Am I Crazy? Maybe.

Alright, it’s time for me to come clean as to why I’m all of a sudden talking about treadmills and workouts on the blog. No, I’m not training for the next Olympics. I am, however, training for a 12K race!!

I guess I should back up a few steps and explain how I came to this decision. I’ve had a desire to get into running ever since last summer but really didn’t have the gumption to follow through on anything. I gave it a whirl here and there, but wasn’t consistent enough to make real progress. At the end of last year, I made it a goal of mine to become more fitness orientated with the intention of finally getting into running.

I’ve been thinking of signing up for a 5K since the beginning of January, but for some reason I just couldn’t find the desire to do it. I know what you’re thinking, “Girl, are you crazy? You’re saying you don’t want to do a 5K, so you signed up for a 12K instead?“

Pretty much. It’s hard to explain my rationalization on this one, but it has to do with my mentality of go big or go home. While crossing the finish line and completing a 5K would be a great feeling, it’s something that I could be capable of in a short amount of time (based on my ability to huff and puff my way through almost two miles in Florida). Now a 12K? That’s something I’ve never imagined myself doing. It would be a real challenge and something that I would be incredibly proud of myself for completing.

So, a 12K it is (which is roughly just under 7.5 miles). On April 10th, which is approximately 9 weeks away. I think it should be a fun one since it’s being sponsored by the Seattle Seahawks and I’ll actually have the chance to run inside their training facility!

Now for the important stuff, like how I actually plan to pull this off. Because right now, truthfully, the idea of running more than 7 miles makes me want to go curl up in a corner and cry. I did a good amount of research online to get myself started and found some great resources. Also, finding this 10 week training plan for a half marathon was comforting. Surely if people are training to run 13 miles in 10 weeks, I can certainly train to run 7 in the same amount of time. Most helpful was probably Runner’s World where I signed up for a free account to make a personalized training plan.

Right now, due to the weather and lack of enough daylight hours in the day, I’m doing my training indoors on a treadmill. This makes me a little nervous just for the fact that I believe outdoor running to be more challenging – I don’t believe that I can bust out 3.5 miles on the pavement just because I can do it on a “dreadmill”. For that reason, I’ve been overshooting my mileage target these past few days in hopes of building up my endurance as a way of compensating for the lack of outdoors training. I’ve already noticed the days getting longer though, so I think my days of being confined on the treadmill are numbered. I’m also considering still signing up for a 5K at the end of February / beginning of March just to be able to check that milestone off the list.

Besides the overall fear of just not being able to run seven miles within nine weeks, my other fear is injury. I’m taking extra care to do lots of stretching before and after every workout and pretty much every other chance I get during the day. Besides proper stretching and ensuring that I’m not over doing it during any run or workout, I’m not sure of any other precautions I can take.

Sometime this week I hope to create a separate page devoted to my training where I’ll track my progress and have my training plan in a larger (i.e. more legible) size.

Do you guys have any training tips? I’ll also happily accept any well-wishes that you may have – I have a feeling that I’m going to need it!