St. Patrick's day freeze-fest, training plans, and 30 day challenges

I finally ran my first race of the year-a St. Patrick's Day 5K on March 16. The weather conditions were less than ideal: the air temp was 37F, but felt like 21F thanks to the 30mph winds. Thankfully, I warmed up after about a mile, but I had a headwind while going uphill and then a tailwind while going downhill. I wasn't sure if I was going to launch off into flight or not! These are my results:

Chip time: 29:09 (pace=9:23)
Overall: 349/1224 (top 29%)
Females: 129/775 (top 17%)
F30-34: 36/161 (top 22%)

Not too shabby for my first race of the year.

I talked to some people about the HITs marathon, and they all told me to steer clear, for various reasons. So I've decided to hope that they hold Andy Payne (~Sept 14), and then I am going to do 24 the Hard Way (12hr road option) on Oct 25. I'm pretty excited about this plan! I don't know how it's going to work out with having school 4 nights a week in the fall, but I'll figure it out. I'm also doing the OKC Tour de Cure on June 21. I combined training plans for all 3 races to make a massive 31-week training plan that started last week. The first 3 weeks are "get back in the game" weeks, so I'm not pushing too much and just trying to get my body closer to some sort of shape. The laundry list of injuries/sore spots is still a little long. I've had some issues with pain in my butt, and I think it might be piriformis syndrome. It flares up if I even look at a hill, so for now I'm staying away from hills and speedwork, and making best friends with my foam roller and stretching a lot. I went to Denton, TX, last weekend for the DFW Fiber Fest, and I did a hilly 6 mile run on Saturday morning. It took 2 days for my butt to stop hurting lol. Anyway, this is what I think my race schedule is going to look like for this year. I haven't 100% decided to do the Friday night 5K series yet, but it's in the list for now.

April 19: Remember the Ten 10K
May 17: Warrior Dash
June 21: OKC Tour de Cure
June 27: HOT 5K
July 13: Du Draper Duathlon
July 18: HOTTER 5K
Aug 8: HOTTEST 5K
Aug 30: Choctaw Nation 5K?
Sept 6: Gravedigger
Sept 14: Andy Payne Marathon
Oct 5: SoS Half
Oct 19: Fall Classic Duathlon
Oct 25: 24 the Hard Way

In order to prep for the Warrior Dash, I'm doing 3 30-day challenges.
1: Plank Challenge (note: it starts with 20sec; I am doing 1min until it advances past that)
2: Push-up Challenge
3: Squat Challenge

So far, I'm 3 for 3.  Yesterday, I did 1/2 of the plank time and 1/2 of the push-ups in the evening in addition to the full amount in the morning. I'm not sure how long I'll be able to keep up doing both.

Next up, my Bia came! I'm going to wait until I've done a long run before I post about it. I used it for a very brief .1 mile run in my apt complex parking lot on Monday, and then a 12ish mile bike ride last night. Very excited!