Tomorrow starts the first day of Spring Semester and the first day of track practice! I’m slightly scared…..this morning I awoke to -6 degree weather. Not the most ideal running situation ;)

Since I am coming off of a 5 week break from running & school, it’s hard to get back in the mode of being a student-athlete. Waking up early again, layering up with lots and lots of under armor and heading to 4 hours of classes after practice is a huge change from my vacation mornings that began with coffee and Pinterest. It is officially Indoor Track season though, which I will just be using to tune up for Outdoor Track in a couple of months. And today is:

This week, training will be fairly easy for me. I can’t just jump into full-on speed workouts on the track because my muscles need a little time to wake back up. So to ease into it, I’ll be doing some comfortable morning runs, increasing in mileage as the week goes on. If time permits, I’ll throw in some short afternoon runs in to the schedule as well. Mondays and Wednesdays we have weight training with a strength coach, though I always add in my own core routines after each run before stretching.

When I started training in college, I got used to doing long runs on Sunday and I really like it! (As 0pposed to long runs on Saturdays with a rest day on Sunday.) Get the week off to a good start and set the tone for the next few days’ workouts. I think long runs are my favorite workout of the week, when we tick off 11, 12, 13 miles before a feast brunch :) The longer the run, the happier I am (which means I should be just ecstatic after my first marathon!).

However today won’t begin with a brisk 12-miler for my first long run in over a month. But since I will be kissing “free time” goodbye tomorrow, I’ve got to take advantage of this Sunday with an extra long trip to the gym (iPod is loaded)! On the menu for today:

Get sweaty on Sunday morning & have the rest of the day to relax!