Alternatives to Running

I trust everyone enjoyed their long (or regular) weekend. We celebrated John's Grandfather's 90th birthday with his whole family this weekend, it was a little crazy, but I am back, recovered, and looking forward to a super busy upcoming few weeks.


Well as the title implies I have been looking for some running alternatives recently. My mileage is getting ready to taper off hard going into the spring and summer months, and to maintain my weight and fitness base, I will need to incorporate more than just a few short runs a week. While I have done a lot of research into what I need and want to be doing, I thought I would see what other fun ideas other people have.


The Goals:

**Speed! This really is my biggest goal with going lighter on the mileage over the next couple months. I want to improve my overall speed over the next 4-5 months.

*Injury Prevention: While there are not any present injuries, I seem to be recovering from races much slower and having more frequent minor flare-ups from previous injuries. I know backing off will help to get me back to 100% so when I am ready to jump into another training cycle I will be healthy.

*Burnout:  I love running, I really do, but trying to maintain a very detailed schedule with no real goal at the end is a bit difficult mentally. I don't want to burn myself out by "training through base building" so I want to bring in some other stuff to mix it up

**Wedding Bod: Yes running is the culprit that helped me lose 35lbs, but my system needs another shock factor to zap it into shape for this wedding, you won't really be able to see my legs, so the rest of me needs some work.


The Methods:

*Decrease running to 3-5 days/week and focus only on quality workouts and speed- my ideal would be 4x week (one hills, 1 tempo, 1 track day, 1 long run)

*Strength Training- I have been back into a weight lifting routine for a full 2 weeks now, which is almost unheard of for me. I have 3 days a week of weights that I would like to get in, help me get back some muscle definition and try to keep my metabolism as high as I can.

**Try more variety: Doing more spinning, yoga, pilates, and getting back outside on my bike

***Calorie Torchers: namely the stair climber and the arc trainer. Every time I hop on either of these beasts, I am so swety and winded I swear I just completed a 5k race- I know they can do some serious damage!

***Try new things:  Swimming, cross-fit (maybe, this still scares me a little), hot yoga, maybe a triathalon, and anything else I haven't thought of. I know things like this will make me stronger overall and a better athlete, so I feel like this is kind of the time to jump into it.


After the Gate River Run on March 12th this is the plan for the next 4 months. Anyone have any good ideas I missed or fun things to try?????



I have a Wedding Wednesday post coming tomorrow, we've been very productive :)