January recap and February plan

So I wish that I could emerge from my long blogging absence to report intense training and amazing progress with my running. Unfortunately, the running stats don't say much. In the month of January, when I thought that I would be reaching some higher mileage totals, I cut out a lot of long runs and worked more on total body fitness with the Wii Active Personal Trainer. So in January, I only ran 35 miles when I expected to run almost twice that much.

The good news is that I did exercise. About twice a week, in between and along with short runs, I did the Wii Active Personal Trainer workouts. And you know what? It has been getting me into better shape than years of running has. Look at this picture of how my pants are now fitting:


These are pants that I bought for work in August. The style was a good fit, so I bought a lot of different colors in that style - about $200 worth - and now, after a couple of weeks of these personal trainer workouts, they're all a few inches too big. If I get more serious and complete 3 or 4 workouts in a week (4 is recommended) and start watching what I eat, 2011 could finally be the year that I could be able to wear a bikini without fear of flab.

But what about running? I know for a fact that my body will not respond well to exercise without a lot of rest, and I can't increase my mileage and do the workouts with enough rest in between.

So... I'm not going to increase my mileage right now. That means that I might not be on track to run a marathon this year, but it could be good for me. I think that I'm benefiting a lot from exercising so many muscle groups. Maybe I'm building hip strength and when I do go back to focusing more on running, that nagging hip/IT band pain I developed just before the half-marathon last year won't be an issue. It also can't hurt to get rid of all of that pudge. Stronger muscles having less fat to lug around has to equal increased speed, right? And I really want to finally have a flat belly.

So the plan is to do the Wii workouts 3 times a week and run between 1 and 2 miles before or after each workout. Then a long run every Sunday, if possible. If a run is not possible on Sunday (and lately it's not, thanks to the weather making roads and sidewalks icy and very narrow), then do another Wii workout.

So that's it. And I'll try not to disappear from here again.