Friday Five: My running and blogging anticipations

Friday Five 2.0 Linkup. I confess that this is my first link-up post. Running on Happy and Fairytales and Fitness are the hostesses of the Friday Five 2.0 linkup and it looked interesting, so I thought I’d try it out. Apparently each week they choose a weekly blog topic and invite other bloggers to also write about the same topic – then they share the links. Even though I’m more “experienced in age” than most, I think that I can do this!! So, since the topic today is “Free”, I can write about whatever I want, just keeping it to Five items. Here goes!

FIVE THINGS THAT I’M LOOKING FORWARD TO OVER THE NEXT MONTH OR SO…

1.  My first 5k and 10k races in 2018:  I’ve signed up for the Houston Wellness Project 5k which is this Sunday and the Houston Rodeo Run 10k in late February. I’m really looking forward to running the 5k because my training has been very good lately. In late 2017, I started consistently running 3 miles without stopping which is incredible for me. I’m hoping to run the Houston Wellness 5k this Sunday without stopping and maybe even PR! As for the Rodeo Run 10k, I think I’ll also see good improvement. Fingers crossed!

2.  Starting run training with USA Fit Houston on 3 February:  I’ve really missed my training group from Luke’s Locker. Once Luke’s Locker closed in Houston, our training group continued for awhile and then it finally disbanded. I didn’t stay until the very end, as life happened, but I really miss the camaraderie and coaching that I got from belonging to a training group. I researched several of the different programs in Houston and the USA Fit training seems like the best one for my abilities and to fit my schedule. Training is every Saturday morning and then again on Tuesday evenings. It’s even pretty close by. I can’t wait for this one to start in about 10 days!

3.  My first brand ambassadorship will start on 1 February:  Shhh…it’s still a secret. I can’t say who it is yet, as we don’t start until 1 February but I’m so excited!! I applied for the ambassador program wanting to learn more about the application process and when I applied, I didn’t think I’d get picked. To my surprise, I was accepted! It’s a great brand and I can’t wait to share some of my thoughts about the brand with you.

4.  Trying out Interval training for longer runs: This past week I tried running intervals for the first time ever. Over Christmas, my sister let me dig through her running gear to see if there was anything that I wanted. I saw that she had a GymBoss interval timer so I snagged it – along with a few other fun items – and took it home with me. This past week, I used it for a run with my friend Jennifer.  We ran 3.1 miles using a 1:1 interval sequence and our overall pace was 13:07. I admit that I was surprised that we finished around 13 minutes per mile because I wasn’t really even tired. I’m looking forward to trying it over the next few weeks and see if I can do a 10k using 1:1 or 1:30/1 intervals! I’m not going to give up my running without walking endurance runs but intervals may be a way to get in some miles without killing myself. By the way, the GymBoss was really easy to use and the vibration setting allows it to tucked into a pocket or clipped to a running belt yet you can still easily know when its time to switch from a run to a walk (my opinion only, not an ad).

5.  Learning how to promote my blog through social media:  I’ve had this blog for about 2 years now and I originally created it so that I would have a good log of my TinkerBell 10k run training.  Since I was training “covertly” so that my sister wouldn’t figure out that I was running the TinkerBell 10k with her, I needed somewhere to document everything that I was doing and feeling during my training.  After TinkerBell, I found out that I enjoyed blogging and kept it up mostly for myself.  Now, however, I’d like to do more with the blog and figure out how to get out there and available should anyone want to read it!  Over the Christmas holidays, I worked on revamping the look of the blog and added Social Media links.  But I’m still in the learning process.  In fact, today’s LinkUp is something that I’ve been wanting to do but haven’t because I didn’t know how!   So more to come over the next few months as I learn to promote my blog.  Stop by my FB page and my Pinterest page when you have a chance!  And let me know how I’m doing.

Okay – now wish me luck that I’ll actually be able to “link up” with the Friday Five!   Thank you again,  Running on Happy and Fairytales and Fitness for hosting the Friday Five!