Fit-tastic Friday Links

Look at me being so prepared- you may THINK I'm posting this live, but I'm actually on the Appalachian Trail right now. Or frozen to death. One of the two.
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Unbelievable Images of Female Athletes - the Huffington Post

Best Race Signs - this blog is awesome!

5 Life Lessons I've Learned from Running  - Life Hacker

Black Friday Survival Guide - REI.com

A Frosty 10k Plan

Northern Virginia skipped the normal winter temperatures and went straight to the 20s this morning. Last Friday, I ran in shorts and a long sleeve. Today, full winter gear!

So. For the first time, I'm actually training for speed. Weird, right? Thanks to the running club I just joined, I have a little help. Here's my plan, running my usual three times per week.

- 6 miles (+ 1 mile warm and and +1 mile cooldown) tempo pace
- interval track workout with AARC
- weekend long run with AARC, ranging from 10-14 miles at whatever pace I want (Let's be honest, whatever pace my running partners want. I just want the company!)

I went to my first track workout last week and it was super fun! We did 8 x 400s and 4 x 200s. I feel really cool about learning the lingo. I pretty much just followed the pack on the 400s, and this was the perfect challenge without being too hard.

My goal for the New Year's Eve 10k is to come in under 50 minutes. That's just under 8 minutes per mile. It feels like that will be a stretch for me, since my normal pace is anywhere from 8:30 to 9:30. But that's for longer distances. There's no reason I can't bump that up for 6 miles.

I actually like running in the cold weather, so I'm excited to have a training schedule for the next month!

"The Color of Pee" Infographic

Is my urine healthy?

 

 

Tomorrow, We Run [and we make training schedules. and we stick to them]

This picture makes me want to race real bad.

Is this Lance Armstrong? Kinda looks like Lance Armstrong. Does he (or did he- ha!) do ads for Asics?

So a couple weeks a joined a local running club. So fun! Everyone has been really friendly and I have so much fun on my runs with them. The only race I have coming up is a little New Year's Eve 10k. I am itching to do a half marathon - I want a new PR - but there aren't any during the winter around here. But I haven't done a 10k in a couple years so I'm excited to properly train for it. One of the more experienced runners I was running with on Saturday gave me some tips to get to my goal of under 50 minutes.

Maybe I could do something uncharacteristic for this blog and post a training schedule. My usual MO is to do longer distance races, so training is just about upping mileage gradually. And if I'm doing a random shorter race, I don't really do anything different except for maybe do a couple shorter runs to see what time I should expect. But this time, I'm going to do interval training, track workouts, and have a PLAN.

Russian Subway Accepts Squats as Payment

Fit-tastic Friday Links

Four Last Minute Costumes for Hikers - Washington Trails Association - [I know, I know, a little late. Whatevs.]

5 Pounds of Fat vs. 5 Pounds of Muscle - Flickr

Cute Marathon Gifts - PopSugar Fitness [I love the "twenty six point freaking two" bag.]

Running with Dogs - Runner's World [Omg I want this job. Also, "[He] had to give up running because of repetitive stress injuries from skydiving, which may be the single greatest excuse for not running I've ever heard."