6 Half-Marathons in One Year?!?!?!?!

Yep, that's right. I said it and I am going to do it. I am going to put this as my number one goal for the year 2011. I want to run 6 marathons this coming year. I have been working on my running and working with my trainer, Tripp, on improving my muscle endurance and strengthening my core to be an injury-free runner.

I have been told that running 6 half-marathons in one year is crazy. Well, I started out in 2008 running/walking one half-marathon and that was crazy. Then, 2009 brought 3 half-marathons, 2 10ks, 2 5ks and a hip surgery and that was crazier. So I guess I will have to continue on my path of craziness :)

I am realistic about the half-marathons. I do not necessarily want to get a personal record on every one of them. Although if I did, that would be totally awesome to me :) I will be using some of them as training for the next race. I certainly will do my best in each race and reach for my own personal goals. However, I am not going to stress myself to kill myself each race because that would cause me to burn out before I get to the next one. I have learned to pace myself and will be doing that during training and each race.

And for those questioning my sanity, it's not a bad plan. I know of others who have even higher goals set for themselves for the year. I am a very determined person. I am goal-oriented and I love pushing myself towards my goals. Setting this as my goal for the year will cause me to be focused and ready to go. And I am looking at doing a full marathon in 2012 or later so this will be good training grounds for that.

If I had not been sidelined last year by my hip surgery, I think I might have attempted another half. However, hip surgery and recovery brought me quite a bit of difficulty and stress. In fact, at one point, I was unsure whether I wanted to race again or even run again. There was a period of depression and a period where my mental toughness was called in to question.

Now, I am back and I am stronger. I owe this in part to my trainer, Tripp, and in part to two of my friends who I have done races with, Cathy and Chuck. Tripp has changed up my strength training routines to help me strengthen some areas that will help improve my running and most importantly help me to run injury free. He has helped me to feel like my goals are more than achievable and improved my balance and made me excited about training again. Cathy and Chuck have helped me to focus and kept me going when I didn't want to. They both have encouraged me to keep pushing it. Chuck has even worked with me on improving my running form so that I am a better runner. I am so blessed to have them all in my corner!

So mentally, I am ready for race #1 next weekend. Will I get a PR (personal record)? I don't know. What I do know is that I have a strategy and a game plan. I will be getting some MP3s from my awesome trainer to add to my running playlist...those will be a great encouragement on my run! I will be spending the next few days in preparation for the race. I have one last leg day and a strength training session and a light training day with some stretching planned. I will get a little bit more mileage in this week but nothing crazy.

Come next Saturday morning, the race is on!