How do you start a new year?

With a new training plan, of course. Tomorrow kicks off week 1 of training for marathon redemption in Oklahoma City on April 25. So I've promised myself, and am promising all of you out there who will still read my blog after my extended absence, that I will blog about my journey to marathon redemption at least once a week. I can't promise that it's always going to be witty, or entertaining, or even interesting, but I'll do my best.

So I'm trying out something new this time around - the training plan I've come up with only has me running three days a week. A recovery run, a tempo or speed run, and a long run. The plan has three 20 mile long runs built in - which seems like a really good idea right now, but I'm sure will not seem like such a good idea after I actually finish the first 20 mile run. Along the way I hope to work into my schedule at least one spin class a week, strength training a couple of times a week, and yoga as much as possible. Not to mention the ballet class that I take once a week. Needless to say, even though I'm only running three days a week I should have no problem keeping myself occupied on the other four days.

Week 1 will be fairly light - 6 mile easy run, 5 mile tempo run, and 10 mile long run next weekend. I'm pretty excited about this new plan and think that it could do good things for me. So I'll leave you until next week, bloggie land - the next time I'll check back in I'll let you know how week 1 went.

Dust off your butt and get your self respect back

Okay, two things here in this post - one, this is my last post before the Disneyland Half Marathon this weekend. Two, in honor of the Disneyland Half Marathon I've decided to give you all what you've been waiting for -- FREE STUFF!!!!! (Applause, applause). That's right folks, it's the Running Lawyer's first EVER super-duper fantastic free stuff giveaway! More on that to follow.

The title of the blog post is a line from a song that I've decided is my mantra for this upcoming race. As I've mentioned, training this summer has gone anything but smoothly for me. I've learned that my body really can't stand heat and humidity when running. I've also had some other "issues" that I will not discuss, although some of you (worm and dork) have already had to listen to the gory details. Needless to say, I'm not feeling very prepared to hit the PR goal I set for myself four months ago. This has been frustrating. Instead of feeling like my training has left me fresh and ready to tackle this challenge, for the most part I feel like my training this summer left me with very little self-respect as a runner.

So here's where the line from the song comes in - dust off your butt and get your self respect back. Yes, training has been bad this summer. Yes, I'm probably in no position to get that PR. Yes, I may not even be in a position to beat my last half marathon time, period. But am I going to let that diminish my spirits about this race? No. Am I going to let my time dictate whether or not I enjoy this race? Absolutely not. I'm going to go do this race, I'm going to high-five every single little kid I can find along the course, I'm going to soak in the scenery (which should be awesome), I'm going to cheer on all my other friends running the race, I'm going to get my two medals at the end and then I'm going to wear them around for the rest of the day like a true running dork.

Bottom line is, the self respect is coming back RIGHT NOW. We all go through tough times as runners, we all face difficulties in training, we all face injuries, we all go through low periods where we doubt ourselves and wonder why we keep doing this. But in the end, we're still runners and we'll still cross that finish line.

But what about the GIVEAWAY, Running Lawyer, you say?? Well, it's simple - I'm going to send one lucky reader something really cool from Disneyland. It may be a hat, it may be a shirt, it may be something entirely different - it's going to be whatever my pretty little head picks out while I'm shopping this weekend. Needless to say, because it's coming from me it will be AWESOME. So how do you earn entries?? Here's how:

1. Become a follower! Drop me a comment to let me know you're new!!
2. Give me some inspiration for my upcoming race - leave me a quote, a good song, an inspiring story - anything! I'll give you up to 5 entries, I need some motiviation here, people!
3. Leave me a comment with the name of the song the line is from - no cheating by looking at other comments! :)
4. Shout it out! Link me up on your blog, leave me a comment so I can stop by and check it out.

You have until Tuesday the 8th to get your entries in, I'll be announcing a winner (and my race report) next Wednesday morning!

Legal ease (what did you expect? I am a lawyer!): family members of the Running Lawyer not eligible. Sorry, but you'll get your own gifts from Disneyland!!

Laissez les bons temps rouler

Sadly, on Tuesday I had to come back to the real world after a long, sometimes relaxing, sometimes wildly entertaining weekend in New Orleans. Yes, I ran while I was there, and for those of you considering running in the French Quarter while on vacation I have this advice - do not run on Bourbon Street. Ever. I also shopped, ate ridiculous amounts of delicious food, and drank a few Hurricanes.

More pictures to come later (promises, promises) but here are a few to tide you over in the meantime:

Three gorgeous ladies listening to some jazz at Preservation Hall

I don't even remember where we are in this picture, but we were having a good time!

Me and the hubs and the whole group on a swamp tour - they fed the alligators marshmallows!