• Stay hydrated throughout the day. Drink half your body weight in ounces. 130 lbs -> 65 oz. water.
• Eat whole foods.
• Key foods: eggs, salmon, sweet potatoes (healthy muscle), beans ( carbs released slowly, energy supply steady), mixed greens (antioxidant, wards off muscle damage), orange (vitamin C alleviates muscle soreness)
• Stick to the plan. Consistency is key.
• Listen to your body: if you feel energized after eating a particular snack, try it again.
• Sleep is critical for muscle repair. Avoid TV, laptop, smartphone thirty minutes before bed (?).
• Respond to pain by cross-training and seeing a doctor.
• Active Recovery: 30 minutes of low-impact exercises help you recover faster by increasing blood flow to damaged muscles.
• Eat an hour before you run, and try to eat about 30 minutes after exercise.
• Vary terrain in order to minimize injury.
• Record training in a log, so that you can learn what kind of training leads to burn out. Seeing the miles pile up can be motivating and help you keep sight of goals.
• Don’t hesitate to walk, if necessary (more applicable to 5K training), and not the 30 minute run, which is short enough. 20 months ago

• When lonely join an online or offline running club, run with others, discuss running with others.
• Visualize success before each of the runs or at any time.
• Running is a metaphor for life. Running is an analogy to life.
• Be specific about your visualization: i.e. I am going to run a half marathon in February in Pasadena.
• If you ever have a hard time leaving the house, tell yourself, you’ll only run for ten minutes. Stick to training time, don’t overtrain.
• Do whatever it takes to stay motivated while running: music, television, etc.
• Think about those last few steps before you cross the finish line or that steak waiting for you at home. Always have a reward waiting for you and honor that reward/promise, once you achieve a certain goal.
• Stay up to date on projects and other goals, in order that you stay connected to why you are doing this running plan. Work hard daily on other projects so you can sense progress in other areas and know your running is paying off. 20 months ago

I restarted this plan today. I started with the second week of it, which starts at 2 minutes of running, and one minute of walking X 10. I want to complete this plan in ten weeks, b/c I want to do the Turkey Trot as my 5k before the half marathon. The half marathon training plan calls for a person who is comfortable running 12-15 miles a week and that needs to be me.

RULES:
Everyday before midnight I do part of the 8-week running plan I have posted on my refrigerator. If something unavoidable comes up, while I’m training like using the restroom, whatever, that’s fine, so long as I made the concerted effort to be present prior to 12am. If I need to wait to advance to the next level in my running percentage, then I have to walk for the rest of the time, and do the training the next day, when I was supposed to be walking or on a rest day. This way I continue on with the plan. The downside is no walking or rest day, other than the one in which I don’t make the cut, but I don’t anticipate having many of these days, if at all, since I’m going to be taking rest days and walking days when scheduled. 20 months ago