Get Up Offa That Thing.

Firstly – HAPPY NEW YEAR!

~shakes pompoms~

I had such a great time / holiday in general. It has all been fantastic. But it seems I’ve forgotten what vegetables are, and what I really should doing with any spare minutes I have now – exercising.

Exercising, moving, going outside. Anything that generally doesn’t involve sitting in my pjs, eating mince pies, pretending it’s still Christmas & over all, avoiding reality.

Thats right! It’s that time again.

9th January officially means HALF MARATHON TRAINING TIME.

Somebody pray for me.

Although I don’t start my Hal Higdon Novice 1 Half Mara Plan until Monday (also bought the plan for my iPhone, I’ll let you know how that works out!) – I started today off with a sneaky 20 minutes on the cross trainer, couple of kettlebell reps and a few weights; before collapsing in an unfit, unattractive heap of Christmas mess on the sofa.

It is amazing how quickly (although I havent exactly exercised since September) you can become so unfit in such a short amount of time. Of course, I’ve never been of Schwarzenegger standard, but whilst training last year, I guess I would have classed myself as quite physically fit ie. could run a couple of miles before breaking a sweat. Now, however, this morning I could barely complete those 20 minutes without my breathing messing up, being in a complete sweat and my legs aching far much more than they should have…

Rubbish.

I didn’t give up. I was disappointed. But if I know anything that running has taught me – its to never give up.

Either way, it was a wake up call, I didn’t exactly set a New Years Resolution, because lets face it, they’re never achieved, but a realistic goal this year is to run atleast one Half Marathon. Of course, I feel like I will run Berlin – but as last year showed, you never know what is round the corner. So I’ll keep my fingers & toes crossed that this one happens and goes well!

The Plan.

I will be following the Half Higdon Half Marathon Novice 1 Plan, found here -> [click]. Taking into account my injuries from last year, and the fact I struggled with twenty minutes on a cross trainer today; this seems like the sensible option. There are always other races to push for PBs and more challenging plans, but right now, running four times a week 2-3 miles in the first few, sounds just about right to me.

What’s even better is that I’m definitely not alone in this. For those not on Twitter – Team Bangs On the Run [Army] is in full effect! Organised by the lovely Bangs & A Bun, a fair few women are joining forces and heading to Berlin to kick this Half Mara’s ass! A lot of the Team I trained with last year will be there too/or running a similar race in the UK & I’m pretty sure any lady willing to get their butt to Berlin in April is allowed to join in :)

So what are you waiting for?