I’m following a modified Runner’s World SmartCoach training plan to get myself ready for the Oak Brook Half Marathon on Labor Day. I’ve taken the SmartCoach printout, and changed it from four to three days a week (Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday) due to time constraints, but kept the same mileage. I’m also going to be modifying the paces with the help of the Daniels Running Formula.

On the days I don’t run (Monday, Wednesday, Friday) I’ll be doing the Hundred Pushups Challenge again. Once I complete my pushups for the day, I’ll do the 16 minute Ab Ripper X (part1 part2) routine from P90X. All of that should help me regain some of my core strength, which should help with my running as well.

I also hope to start using this blog again as a training log, to keep track of how each of my runs are going.

Now that our son – Gavin William – is 8 weeks old, my wife and I have both been able to get some workouts in. We started a couple of weeks ago with some P90X Yoga, which I despised when I went through P90x, but is much more bearable when not doing it alone. We also did Legs and Back, and Shoulders and Arms. I’ve been trying to get a few runs in, and have also gotten in some time on the stationary bike.

I signed up for the Shamrock Shuffle at the end of March, so I’m going to try getting in some quality running workouts over the next few weeks as the daylight lengthens. My PR for the race is 34:08 (8K), so ideally I’d like to beat that, but I’ll have to see how much time I have for training to see if that’s a reasonable goal. I’ve got 8 weeks until race day, and the longest I’ve run so far this year is 10K, so I’ve got some work to do. But I feel like I’ve maintained a decent level of fitness, so hopefully it’ll come back quickly. I’ll try to make some more regular updates as I hopefully run more frequently.

Yesterday’s Plyo was replaced with a run since we weren’t at home and I didn’t have the Plyo DVD with me. I probably burned just as many calories, if not more, running for 30 minutes than Plyo would have. But as weird as it might sound, I dis kind of miss Plyo. It’s such a great, hard workout, that I almost feel like I cheated myself by not doing it.

Back and Biceps was good, but I still feel like I need heavier weights for most of the curls. I’m not feeling the burn at the end of 15 reps quite anymore. I’ll probably just deal with it for now, since we don’t have room to store any more weights, and I’ve only got 4 more active weeks left of this thing.

This morning was tight on time again, so I’ll do Ab Ripper after work. I’ll probably try an easy run beforehand to warm up and tire myself out a little bit. I’m still deciding what to do about Yoga tomorrow. I might do Plyo instead since I couldn’t do it yesterday, or I’ll try to get to the gym to run and then do the Runner’s Yoga when I get home.

We finally finished the 7 pound cake last night, so the diet will be better for a week or so, but my birthday is next week, so we’ll have a cake again. This one won’t be as big, though.