Today's Take it and Run Thursday is about running plans. I started running about four years ago, but circumstances have meant that I've only effectively got under two years of running experience.  I feel like a newbie.  That means that I don't have any wise words about running plans.  I couldn't tell you what's the right thing to do in a given situation.  My unscientific method involves looking around at various running plans for whatever race I'm planning for and then making something up that's something similar and works with my schedule.

I do use this training log, and I completely love it.  It does everything I could possibly need and a few things I don't.  It's quite nifty.  I especially like the race doohickey.  I switched to an Excel spreadsheet when Cool Running dumped their logs over onto Active, and I suddenly thought that maybe I really ought to be hanging on to my own data instead of letting someone else take care of it for me.  I back it up regularly, and the Excel sheet has lots more different kinds of charts than the online logs had, anyhow.

I've found that keeping my runs to four per week has helped me stay *knock wood* relatively injury-free.  I also tend to run just a little bit more than the training plans suggest for me.  

Sometimes I wish I could use running as part of my commute.  Unfortunately, I'm always dragging silly amounts of crap with me on the way to and from school.  This means that I generally run loops, and sometimes an out-and-back.  So my running plan is always the same - go nowhere fast!