So now that this whole spring marathon thing is over with and still satisfied with my decision, I’m ready to come up with a new plan. Nothing crazy or too ambitious just something to keep me focused and moving in a forward direction.

I have three half marathons coming up. The Sleepy Hollow Half Marathon this Saturday, I was originally going to add on seven miles for my first 20 mile long run for the marathon. You have no idea how happy I am about not having to do that. Next up is the NJ Half Marathon on April 27, happy it’s not the full! Finally, the Brooklyn Half on May 17. I’m sort of kind of maybe making that a goal race. Although I’m not really sure what kind of goal it should be. A PR? Just close to my PR? Maybe just feel really great running the race?

All great plans look better in black and white.

So I’ve got a plan provided by Coach Mike from my running club. It’s the “I want to get faster” plan. Ha, we’ll see about that! I’ll probably be the only using this plan who gets slower.

I’ve already modified it a bit but thankfully the mid-week easy runs are the days that I have my deep water running class so I think that’s a pretty good trade off. There are things in there like speed workouts, tempos runs, and something about a core workouts. I really wish I could just buy a core and call it a day.

Of course I’ve got a bunch of races thrown in there that make things interesting like those two previously mentioned half marathons before Brooklyn.

What I really like about this plan is that it doesn’t seem stressful or panic attack inducing. This as we all know is something I can really use in my life right now.

So far I don’t have any racing plans after the Brooklyn Half so I plan to ease up on things and just run for the pure joy of running. I’ll have part two of the kidney stone procedure (please lord let it work this time) and then I get to celebrate a special friend’s birthday. I’m planning to PR that birthday celebration!

After that I’m thinking about doing a running streak again, similar to the Runner’s World Streak Challenge I did last year. Hopefully Runner’s World will do it again this year. The goal of the streak was to run at least one mile a day, every day, from May 31 to July 4. That really got me settled in and ready for my NYC Marathon training. I’m hoping it will provide me with the same boost again this year.

So there you have it, simple easy plans going forward.