Time continues to fly by and we are in the third month of 2018! Now is the perfect time for me to look back on February and share my March running goals!
It’s been a weird winter on the East coast, hasn’t it? March has already come in like a lion and I’m currently dreading another major storm today as we’re expected to get up to 6 inches of snow. The groundhog was right after all…we just had to wait a little longer for the snow to come back! Still, I really can’t complain…we’ve got a couple weeks of winter left!
I’m linking up with Marcia, Patty, and Erika for Tuesdays on the Run, Susie, Debbie, Lora, and Rachel for the Running Coaches Corner and Annmarie, Nicole, and Jen for Wild Workout Wednesday!
February Running Goals Recap:
February is the shortest month of the year, but it certainly kept me busy. While I did miss a 16-mile run, I was still able to clock in over 98 miles in February, my highest mileage since September. Marathon training has been challenging but I’m still hanging in there! As a reminder, these were my goals for the past month:
- Create a meal planning routine. Grade: F. Once again, I failed this goal. I didn’t even attempt to meal plan in the month of February. I honestly forgot that this was one of my goals…terrible!
- Get to the bottom of my knee and shoulder pain. Grade: C. I still don’t know what the root cause of my knee and shoulder pain is, but at least I’m doing something about it. I’m using KT Tape and doing my exercises and stretches more consistently. I’m taking fewer barre classes and lowering the intensity whenever I can. And I’m working on my posture. Unfortunately getting to a doctor requires a lot of hoops to jump…hopefully I can try to get an appointment with primary care on one of my off days.
- Run a long run with a friend. Grade: B. While I didn’t get to run a long run with a companion in the month of February, I did get to run with one of my old running buddies on my Tuesday tempo run days! The last time we ran together was 5 miles and it was a great workout! Tom and I used to run together all the time when I first started my running club at work. He’s now training for the Broad Street Run in May so it was great to get back out there, especially with such mild weather! Hopefully I can find more people to run with for the double digit miles – Bret really did me a solid joining me for 15 last week!
March Running Goals:
- Write in my Training Journal immediately post-workout: I’m a big fan of using a running journal, as I’ve mentioned in my review of the Believe Training Journal. But I will runfess that sometimes my journal entries are a delayed by a day or two, and then I forget the details of my runs. For example, sometimes I’ll feel a bit of soreness during the run, but then I’ll forget to write it down. The best way of avoiding that is to make sure it’s the first thing I do after a run or a class!
- Minimize stress and improve time management: The stress has been pretty high over the past month in my personal and professional life. Of course, losing my mother continues to shape my behavior and priorities. But work has been extremely busy, marathon training is time-consuming, and I’m less than 8 months away from my wedding with a LOT of decisions left to make! In addition to that, I haven’t been able to blog as much as I intended because of my bigger priorities. I’m hoping that in March I can gain better control of my time, get enough rest, and stop feeling so overwhelmed all the time!
- Perform daily injury prevention activities: I’m really taking these aches and pains that I’ve acquired over the past month seriously, and I’m doing anything that I can to prevent a serious injury. I’m rolling, I’m stretching, really focusing on the little things, so every day I want to make sure I’m doing something that will help me out in the long run. If you have any suggestions on good, quick routines, send them my way!
How did you do in the month of February? What are your running goals for March?
I really hope that you can get in to a dr this month so you’ll get the start of your marathon feeling a whole lot better.
You have so much on your plate right now — so you just have to make it a priority to be kind to yourself.
I try to write in my journal before I go to bed. I actually took it with me on my run yesterday (well, left in the car, obviously) so I could write in it immediately after the run . . . and of course completely forgot about it because it was still in the trunk. But I did get to it before I went to bed last night.
Hug. Be kind to yourself. Know your mom is up there looking out for you.
“Be kind to yourself”…that is some really great advice! Thanks so much, Judy. I can definitely be too hard on myself and get so stressed out. Journaling before bed is a good strategy too!
I’m sorry to hear you haven’t figured out the cause of your pain! That must be frustrating! Wishing you luck with all your March goals. I hope wedding planning is fun and not stressful!
Thanks a lot, Nicole. I’m definitely feeling the stress about wedding plans…I’d love to get to the fun part, lol!
I also didn’t do a good job at meal planning this month. I don’t know why this is so hard for me to do!
I hope that things at work get a little less stressful at work this month. At least the good thing is that you will have more free time after your marathon in April!
Seriously…I cannot WAIT for this marathon to be over! I don’t know what I’ll do with all my free time back, haha! Knowing me I’ll fill it up with more stuff to do LOL, but at least I won’t have the pressure of training on my back!
Nice job with your mileage in Feb! I hope you can get your aches and pains under control. I was really good about writing down my workouts in January but I have fallen out of the habit lately. I need to get back to that!
Thanks a lot, Lisa! I was glad to be able to build up my mileage. I’m being optimistic about the knees…fingers crossed!
Blogging definitely helps with staying accountable with workouts but my journal gets all the real details. It really helps you see patterns too!
If it makes you feel better, I’ve been slacking on many of the same things. No meal plan, no journaling and minimal pre/post workout stretching. Ugh. I’ve been pretty seat-of-the-pants all February. Here’s to a better March!
LOL! Well we will both do better this month!! 🙂
I am sorry about your knee and shoulder pain. It’s especially frustrating when you don’t know where it’s coming from. Maybe you just over-trained? I think going easy is the right approach.
Let me know if you need help meal-planning! I do it every week 😉
Since you failed Meal Planning, I would love to know, what you eat on a typical basis without planning?! I never meal plan – but I just always know salmon will be involved, lol, thus I always have it on hand! 😉
One of my goals once I get back to training is to write in my workout journal immediately post-workout too. I felt like I has such a better training experience when i used to do it regularly!