Hospital Bed to 10K

Before I get into the substance of today's topic, I want to point out that this is my actual 100th blog post!! Woohoo!! If any of you have read every single entry so far, I thank you for your support, but also doubt your sanity. ;-) A lot has happened in my world since this blog began, and I can't wait to see what the next 100 posts will cover!

One topic that I certainly will write a lot about is my new training plan! I call it my "Hospital Bed to 10K" plan, because I have decided to focus my entire post-surgery return to fitness on one major goal. I have scrapped all plans for fall races because I know I won't be ready for any of them and I don't want to set myself up for failure. Winter races are still possible (to the extent that they exist around here), but I will wait and see how I'm progressing before I set my sights on any particular events.

To allow myself plenty of time to ease back into running while juggling the demands of working motherhood, I have selected a spring race as my ultimate goal. It's the Cooper River Bridge Run down in my hometown of Charleston, SC, and I have always wanted to do it. I walked it once in college, and I was supposed to run it this year with my sister, but my pregnancy interfered. There will be no more excuses -- in 2012 I will finally "Get Over It" and run the bridge!

My HB210K plan is a little more drawn out than your average Couch 2 5K plan, since I have 7 months to prepare. I didn't think I could find a single 10K training plan stretched out that long, so I've pieced together three different plans. I am starting with the "Aggressive Couch to 5K Program" from the Beginner Triathlete website, which is the program I followed to get back into running after my stress fracture last year. After the first 5 weeks of that program, I will switch to Jeff Galloway's 5K and 10K training plans. I followed some of Galloway's plan last year while training for my first 10K, and it worked out pretty well. There is some overlap between the 5K and 10K programs, so if things do not go well for whatever reason, I have those extra weeks built in there that I can skip and still stay on track to be ready by March 31st.

Having a plan has energized and motivated me; it is great to have something positive to focus on instead of thinking about how I'm not living up to my silly unrealistic expectations for post-baby fitness so far. Now I can mark my progress, however slow it is, towards achieving a major goal and making a longtime dream come true! Once I cross that finish line in Marion Square, I'm sure I will no longer care about how this pregnancy affected my body and fitness. Bridge Run, here I come! Who wants to join me?