The end of 2006

No running today. Resting for a New Year's 10k race tomorrow. - my first ever 10k race.

It's been 3 weeks since the marathon and I've been running probably a little too hard since then and my knees are telling me to back off a little. I'm on an 8 week schedule for the Kaiser Half Marathon on Feb 7th. 5 days a week, 35-40 miles/week and lots of speedwork (400m and 800m). Plus I've thrown in a couple 10k practice runs for fun (best time so far 46:52).

Looking back over the last 9 months I can see a lot of progress (the advantage you get of starting from zero...). I've gone from 60-70 miles/month in June/July to about 130 in December. My fast pace in April is now my easy pace.

2007 is about doing some much more structured training, and scarily I am also starting to look at what I eat! (I had promised that running was not going to start changing what/when I eat but there you go....). The focus is on half marathons for the first 6-7 months and then I need to get serious about doing a "well-under-4-hour-marathon" in Sacramento at the California International Marathon on December 3rd. Reviewing my two somewhat subpar marathons of 2006 I realise there are 2 major problems....

1) I have been running nowhere near enough miles in training to run a good marathon
2) I need to stop wimping out at the end of the race

For now though it's an easy day with the family - Happy New Year!