Before I had my Little Man, I had been into running for a few years.  I did several races, including a couple of half-marathons, and I loved it!  Over the past three years of having my son, though, I just fell out of regular running.  It takes a lot of time to train for longer distances, and I was really loving my at-home workouts.  It’s so much more convenient to just walk down to my basement and get a workout in without worrying about driving anywhere or worrying about what the weather is doing.  I still prefer my at-home workouts to running, honestly, but I missed running!  There is something about running that clears my mind and just lifts my mood that nothing else can replicate or replace, and I just missed it.

When I realized how much I missed running (which not surprisingly was happening as I watched a lot of my social media friends posting about getting ready for the Kentucky Derby Festival Half Marathon), I decided to get back into it and train for a race.  I’m spending the next several months training for the Urban Bourbon Half Marathon in October!  Go big or go home, right?  It doesn’t really take that long to train for that distance, but I’m going from not running in months to working up to that distance, so I’m giving myself plenty of time to build my stamina again.

Right now, my training plan is to get 2 runs in per week.  Most programs you’ll find online will recommend 3 runs per week, but when I was training for my past half marathons I did 2 runs and it was fine.  The most important thing to me is to get that long run in each week and to be consistent with my cross training.  The last half I did, I really focused on my cross training and it made a huge difference for my pace and endurance.  And with the all-access streaming workouts I have through Beachbody On Demand, I can do literally any type of workout I want while I’m training–cardio, weights, Pilates, yoga, barre, or dance.  That will help me not just with my running, but with my overall fitness and helping me continue working toward my goals.

This is my weekly training plan–I’m staying flexible to change this as I pay attention to what my body seems to need rest-wise.  I’m already thankful for my Beachbody Performance Energize and Performance Recovery to help me have the energy to push hard in my workouts and not be sore!  I know I’m going to need the help!

Monday: Whole Body Cardio workouts

Tuesday: Upper Body workouts

Wednesday: Training run

Thursday: Pilates/Core workouts

Friday: Lower Body workouts

Saturday: Long run

Sunday: Yoga/active recovery workouts

This is just a loose schedule–it won’t look like this every single week.  Sometimes I’ll need to switch up when my training runs are happening based on what our family schedule is and my husband’s work schedule, which means I’ll need to change up workouts and switch things around.

I’m especially excited about choosing different workouts from different programs!  There are some programs that I’ve done before and LOVE (like 21 Day Fix, T25, and Insanity Max:30) that I excited to do again, and there are programs I’ve never done before that I am looking forward to trying (like P90x3, Yoga Studio, and Country Heat).

This is what my workout schedule looks like this week:

Monday: 21 Day Fix Extreme Power Strength

Tuesday: 21 Day Fix Upper Fix

Wednesday: Training run

Thursday: 21 Day Fix Pilates

Friday: Long run

Saturday: T25 Lower Focus

Sunday: 3 Week Yoga Retreat Week 1 Stretch