Action Plan - Week ONE

Before I get into the details of week one of the Action Plan, I want to share just my weekend run with you.

On Saturday I (once again) did my longest run of the year.  A few weeks ago I had planned to run 13.1 miles, without stopping, before the end of the month.  My target date was to do that this past weekend.

I have to be honest and say I am not quite there with my running to cover that distance without rest breaks yet.  My mind wants to be there, but my body isn't there.  I accept that and will continue to work towards that goal.  So, my revised goal was just to run 13.1 miles, with whatever breaks were necessary.

When I started out on my run on Saturday, a couple miles in and my tummy reacted to the early morning start that I hadn't gotten up early enough for to prepare.  So, I had an unplanned stop early on.  Lately my friend has been running from her place and we meet halfway (which is about 3 miles for each of us), then we run together.  Because I had to stop, she ended up running 4 miles and I only ran 2.  This would mean that with the route we planned, my overall distance would be shorter.  So, I figured I'd end up with 11-12 miles and that would be that.

My friend is training for a full marathon, so we've been meeting up, running a loop together, then I get my bike and ride alongside her to finish up her mileage.  As we finished up our loop together, I was at 12 miles, but didn't feel like I was dying.  I really wanted to run at least the 13.1 miles, so decided to tack on another "little" block.  Whoops ... didn't realize that "little" block was 2 miles.

I ran 14 miles!  And I actually felt pretty darn good.  That's my longest run this year, and probably the longest I'll do as I'm not interested in longer distances.  I still want to do the half without stopping, but for the next month I want to work on intensity and speed over the 5 and 10K.

Now, onto the Action Plan Details .....

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Action Plan - Week One

I have e-mail a link to the spreadsheet for anyone who was interested in joining along.  If anyone else is interested, or you didn't get the invite to the spreadsheet, let me know.  Remember this is NOT a competition against each other, it's only against yourself.

Each item below is worth 1 point.  And if you choose to skip an item, your choice.  Week One will have a little more to record as it's all the starting info.

1. Record your starting weight
2. Record your starting measurements (suggest at least Chest, Waist, Hips, Thighs, Arms).
3. Take a beginning picture
4. Choose a cardio challenge and post what you are doing.  Remember to note what you did, where, maybe even what time of day, as you will want to duplicate this at the end of the month to note your progress
5. Record time for cardio challenge
6. Strength workouts - Earn 1 pt per strength workout (up to 3 times) - the fitness test can count as one
7. Daily Activity - earn one point that you do 30 minutes or more of activity.  If you do a 30 min strength workout you double your points because you'll get one for a strength workout and one for activity
8. Daily Nutrition - earn one point per day that you stay within your personally established healthy eating guidelines.  It would be interesting if we each posted what we're doing, but that's not required.
9. Do the following fitness test and record results:
• Count # of push-ups in a 1 minute period
• Time how long you can hold a plank
• Time how long you can hold a wall sit
• Time 1 mile run (ran as fast as you can)

If you have any questions I'm always happy to answer.

Heidi

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