Happy 2017!! I hope everyone had a fabulous holiday. I started the day off with a killer workout with Alexa, who is already kicking major butt with her Boston Marathon training (she’s running for an amazing org working to end sexual violence–more here!) We did 11 miles total–3 to warm up, 4 interval miles with 3 minutes at 7:20ish pace and 2 minutes at 8:20ish pace, and 4 to cool down…. all of this on the infamous Newton hills. More details and splits are here, but suffice it to say that we earned our champagne!

J and I spent the evening with lots of friends (and FOUR adorable dogs) and partied way past our bedtimes. It was a great night/weekend/end to the holiday season. Leaving the larger world for just a sec, I can’t wait for 2017. It will be the year I turn 30, finish my MBA, and of course, marry my best friend. I’ve also been thinking a lot about my running goals for the year. Laura over at This Runner’s Recipes (highly recommend her blog) wrote a great post about goal setting, which inspired me to think about the year in chunks rather than as one long slog. I’m a really different runner than I was 6 months ago, so it really resonates with me to set goals more often than every 12 months.

One big piece of this year’s goal-setting is thinking about whether/when I want to run a full marathon. I am going to leave this one up in the air for now, although there is a real possibility I will not be running a full marathon this year. While the master plan is still to 1. get my BQ, 2. run Boston, 3. maybe retire from marathoning, I know this year is going to be really busy so we’ll see what form this takes.

In the meantime, I will most definitely be running and chasing some BIG goals–here are my goals for the first four-ish months of 2017!

1. PR the half: My 1:36:55 finish at the Cambridge Half Marathon this fall really cemented something I already knew–I LOVE the half distance and have real capacity to improve at it. I am running the New Bedford Half in March and I would love to set a new PR at that race with an A goal of breaking 1:35.
2. Break 20 minutes in the 5K: This goal is a little bit murkier for me, but I do think that I have capacity to improve at shorter distances now that I have a stronger base of speedwork under my belt. Tentatively, I am looking at the BAA 5k which takes place during Boston Marathon weekend in April. I have absolutely no idea what a 5k training plan even looks like, though, which is why my next goal is to…
3. Hire a coach: One thing I hear time and time again is that the best way to make real leaps is to hire a coach. My tentative thought is to use a service like Runner’s Connect, although I’ve thought about hiring an individual coach to map out a plan for me. I don’t think I’m ready to commit just yet to a full-on coaching program (like this one or this one) but any advice is very, very welcome!!

Also, somewhat related–I just joined Classpass for the next few months to have additional indoor workout options. Let me know if you have any particular recommendations for places to check out!

Happy 2017 and HAPPY RUNNING! Linking up with Tuesdays on the run!