Dad and I on New Year's Eve

This is a very bleated new year post, but I am so excited that 2010 is behind us! It was a year of the ultimate high, achieving a major running goal - qualifying for Boston, to the ultimate low, my father's illness.  My father is on the road to recovery, in fact, he and my step-mom are in Florida as we speak getting some much needed, and deserved, vacation time.  And now that things are going well for him, I can press play on my life and fully commit to my Boston training plan.  Seriously, it was like someone hit pause on life and now, getting back into things, while fantastic feels really strange.  The fog is slowly lifting though!

My running guru a.k.a. Crazy Ass Coach Bill has got me pounding out the miles this time around.  He upped my running by a day (4 days of running plus long run on Sunday's), has increased the pace and mileage on my interval runs and upped the incline on my hill repeats.  So far, so good.  The first 2 weeks were tough but it always amazes me how quickly my cardio endurance catches back up. 

I've also gone all crazy hard core on my classes at Gold's too.  Loving body pump (Monday's and Friday's) still and I've actually really gotten into body step on Thursday's and Saturday's (gasp! 1985 ya'll!) and, still very new to me, body combat!  For people who are not aware of the Les Mills classes, combat is basically kickboxing.  I thought I was going to hate it because I have zero coordination but I love it!  I'm sure I look like a total ass but after 60 minutes, I feel jacked up and ready to take on anything!  I take combat Monday, Wednesday and Friday. 

Bill doesn't love my new obsession with classes.  He wants me to only run with the exception of cross training in the form of either biking or swimming.  So I  keep my gym schedule to myself.  I'm sure I'll have to tone it down as our weekend long runs get longer (speaking of, we have a 21 miler on tap this Sunday!) but for now, it feels good to be back at it!