I went to a Zumba class today with some friends from school. In spite of my total lack of dancing ability, it was pretty fun. Like I told my friend M during the class, I have definitely done things that were much less fun (treadmill, I'm looking at you!) in the name of fitness. I think Zumba is a keeper.
I don't think I've mentioned it here before, but I plan to run a marathon next year in celebration of my 30th birthday. Since I would like to complete said marathon in less than 5 hours, I have already started putting together my training plan. The marathon I would like to run is in June in Alaska, which means I have about 8 months to prepare. That may sound like a long time, but I have been dealing with a running-related knee injury all summer and fall, so I'm not in great shape at the moment.
Right now (and through the first of the year), I am focusing on speedwork/intensity and upping my hours of training per week in a reasonable manner. I have been using soccer and trail-running to work on sprinting and hill intervals. I like the 'fun factor' and the flow this allows. I threw in the Zumba class and some rock climbing this week as basic activity time. Both fall in the fun category, and the rock climbing is desperately needed at this point since I'm going on a climbing trip in early November. I think this approach will work better for me for the time being than the rigid run X days/week plan at X mileage that I normally follow when training.
I hope that my focus on fun training will take me into the new year refreshed and ready to tackle the mileage necessary to prepare for the marathon. So, I guess my fitness goals at the moment are to build a strong cardiovascular base, stay injury free, and HAVE FUN!
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