How I'm getting my groove back

First of all, thank you to all of you for your support on my last post about running and transitioning to the triathlon in 2015.  You guys... you are so wonderful.  I have no words most of the time for how much I value each of you.  Also, I know I have sucked at keeping up with comments.  I have hardly been opening my laptop lately, and any of you who I have emailed via phone, or texted with know what a train wreck I am with that particular technology...  Poor excuses.  I'm working on that, and on reconnecting with things and people that are important to me.

You know what is absolutely insane?  Despite my big running goals for 2014, I have not run more than a half a mile or so since the Shiner Beer Run back in November.  I haven't even worked out.  Nope.  I enjoyed taking a break from it.  I needed to take a break, to recover, to do other things.  Those other things ended up being reading, watching copious amounts of tv, and spending time with the husband and animals.  And it was all blissful.  I am so glad I did it.

But, all good things must come to an end, so that something better can come along and take its place.  Like finally capturing that sub- 2:30 half marathon that I know I am capable of.

So I'm now going to ease back into running and working out.  I always feel the need to have a plan for what I'm doing, otherwise I'm always afraid that I'll become directionless and give up.  Naturally, during this entire hiatus from working out, I have been planning how I would dive back into it all when I came back.  How much I was going to back off on mileage, what I knew I would need to commit to doing so that I could meet my goals.  I need to build a base weekly mileage of at least 12 miles in the next 5 weeks so that I can start a 12 week half marathon training plan.  On paper, that sounds easy, but in my head this sounds really hard.  12 miles is 3- 4 mile runs, or 4- 3 mile runs, or some combination thereof.  Something I feel like I did wrong in the past was not taking my weekday runs seriously, and counting on my weekend long runs to successfully get me to the finish line.  I don't want to fall victim to that again.  I need to work on my discipline with my weekday workouts, and not falling victim to "being too busy" or "being too tired" or "I don't feel like it right now". 

For me, it's about taking things one week at a time, and not getting bogged down with details, or with what I have coming up in the future.  Just one step, and then the next.  So my plan for this week is as follows:

It seems so simple... and yet, that is the challenge for me.  I always feel like I can discount the little things, when in reality, those are the things that are most important, and have the biggest impact.

Since I'm nosy incredibly curious about the lives of others, and because it's resolution season, what are you doing this week to work towards your 2014 goals?  Please tell me below, and I'll do my best to email everyone a little extra encouragement this week!