What's Next For Me With Running

It's been almost a month since I ran the Salt Lake Marathon, and I've spent the last several weeks spinning around different ideas of things that I want to do and accomplish over the next few months. Right after finishing, I thought that I was going to want to hit it hard with training again, and get in shape for a fall marathon, but to have the build up that I want for a fall race, I would have to start training hard again right now, and that didn't leave a lot of room for me to work on other goals that I want to hit.


Ever since I got my 2:01:57 at The Sun Half Marathon in February, getting sub two in the half marathon has been a huge goal for me to hit by the end of the year. I obviously couldn't really work on that goal while marathon training, and now that the marathon is out of the way, I have two races in the next few weeks where I'm going to try and make it happen. 

At the last minute I jumped in and registered for The Ogden Half Marathon this Saturday. This will be another PR attempt at the half marathon distance, and I'm hoping to get just a little bit closer to the sub two mark, if not hit it all together. It's expected to rain, which works in my favor because I would much rather run cold than run hot, so I'm actually looking forward to that. 

Then a few weeks later I have Drop 13 in June. Drop 13 is a completely downhill race, and should weather conditions work in my favor and not be too hot, I'm confident that I will get my sub two half marathon here once and for all. I've been looking forward to this race for months, and it will be fun to see how I measure up, and where my fitness is at after nine months of consistent training. I'm hoping for a big PR here. In my mind, I'm hitting sub two in Odgen, and want to try and get 1:50 at Drop 13. We'll see how that pans out. 

For the summer, I really want to cut back on the distance dramatically. I am not a summer runner by any means, and so I thought that this would be an awesome opportunity to work on my 5k time. I set a really big goal to get a sub 25 minute 5k. I don't have a race in mind, and don't have a plan made to accomplish this goal at all, but I'm hoping to train hard for it through July and August, and then jump into a race in September and see how it all comes together.

As far as my next marathon, I'm shooting for somewhere between February-April of 2019. I don't have the exact race picked out yet, but I feel like this will give me enough time to work through my shorter distance goals that I want to work on over the next few weeks, and then I can dedicate my beloved cold winter months to the marathon like I did this last year.  Recovering from the Marathon was a lot harder for me than I thought it would be, and I want to respect that recovery time by not rushing into another marathon right away. I really want to shave off 40 minutes on my marathon time the next time I attempt the distance, so when I find my perfect race, and training plan, I'll be sure to share the details when they unfold. 

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