Ready, Set, 2026
Happy New Year, Running Fans,
Just bopping into your inbox to give you a quick update on what I’m up to at the start of this year. And I’m here to declare publicly that I’ll be popping into your inbox 2x/month in 2026. Do we think if I publicly declare it there’s a better chance that it will happen? Time will tell.
On Saturday, I met my high school training group, The Offseason Project, on the Indoor Track at the U of M. We had a fun training session of mostly 400s at 3k and 200s at mile. Today we meet for another workout and we’ll do some super secret stuff that for sure has never been thought of by any other coach and will definitely make all the difference in training. The goal of the winter for these high school athletes is to build a huge aerobic engine and do just enough spice to improve speed- especially on days when we can be indoors. And then we’ll come into the track season ready to roll.
We also had a fun surprise- MERCH! And Merch day is the best. A number of these athletes will be spiking up for some indoor races in the coming weeks, and we’re going to rep The Offseason Project on race day.
Today was also the first Mill City Race Team Workout of 2026, and it felt awesome to be back. The time away is good and productive so everyone can re-charge mentally and physically, but I woke up eager and excited knowing I was headed to a group sweat fest on the indoor track this morning. Coaching at Mill City was one of my favorite parts of 2025, and I’m jazzed to be back for rep 2 (see what I did there?).
Finally, I don’t like New Year’s Resolutions, but I like to set intentions for the year. A year ago I wrote a post about my intentions for 2025. You can read about them if you want to. TL;DR is I think I did pretty well. I tried to create genuine connection with the people I love, I tried to show athletes that I care about their running and their lives, and I tried to balance purpose, competition, and joy in my own training. I didn’t do a terrific job every day or every week, but overall I’m pleased. And that’s why I like intentions instead of resolutions- it’s a little softer. It’s more “I’m going to use these things to guide my thinking” as opposed to “If I don’t do exactly this I’m a failure”. You get me?
So, if you’re interested, here are my intentions for 2026:
And there you have it. I hope your Holiday season treated you well, and I hope you’re getting excited about all the running-related things to come in 2026. If you need a reminder about how to do the winter well, you can read these winter training Dos and Don'ts that I wrote about last month.
Happy Running!
Maggie