Maintenance

So now what?  I have completed my half marathon and have no races in site.  What do I do?  I mean, I am going to keep running because I like the time to myself to clear my thoughts.  The hard thing though is finding the motivation to do long runs or even to run on days that are a little less than desirable.  Again, so now what?

Well, the good thing I have going for me is that I feel strong.  I had a little bit of post race soreness for a few days last week, but for the most part that didn't hamper me at all.  I ran a 6 mile route on Tuesday and a 7 mile route on Thursday.  I took the dogs with me to keep me slow so I didn't over work my muscles and get proper recovery.  I then took two days off and went back out for 8 miles with the dogs on Sunday.  I feel like I did well in a recovery week seeing as though I had never done anything like this before.  Getting back into a more regular routine this Tuesday I went for 7 miles with the dogs and noticed how strong my legs felt.  It was great to have a good cruising pace with out much pushing.  The hardest part was not stepping on the dogs!

Now, moving forward.  I still have not signed up for any races and have no real plans for what I want to do. I still know I would like to run a race this fall, but what race and how far is still in question.  There are two long races in the area that I live in the fall, one is a half and one is a full marathon.  I am still leaning toward the half mainly because it felt like a good distance for someone that has only been running for a little over a year and there would be a lot of time I would need to dedicate for a full.  I am not sure I want to give up 3-4 hours on any day in the summer for training.  It can be hard enough to find 2 hours on a weekend for a long run.

So right now I am just working on maintaining good conditioning by getting 7-8 mile runs in while going once a week long runs of about 10-11 miles.  I think that will put me in a good place if I decide to ramp up the work outs through the summer.  Right now, my feeling is that at max I would like to be able to hit 15 miles at some point.  If I can do that, everything will fall into the right place!