Dallen

AM: 4 miles in 8 inches of new snow in Michigan

PM: 8 miles on treadmill at 6:55 average. Back home, finally.

I'll make the 2007 summary quick. Finished the year with 3318 miles, down from 3392 the year before. I had 2 goal races for the year, the Race to Robie Creek and the Chicago Marathon. Both went horribly bad.  I had a couple decent races, but no real PR's. (I did PR at 10 miles, but that record was soft and has been bettered in half marathon splits.). Lots of subpar races.

8 miles on the treadmill with 1 mile at a 5:50 tempo pace just for fun. I am trying to be in a base period so I am not doing much variety for now.

Easy miles very slow outside in the snow.

AM: 8 miles outside

PM: 4 miles inside

This gives me 70 miles for the week wich I have only hit a total of 2 times since september. Next week should be the first 80 since August.

It's about time I get to writing down my goals for 2008.  I will preface this by saying that these are not. I hate resolutions. They are destined to fail. However, this is a good time of the year to reevaluate progress. So here are the goals and plans for the coming year. These are all very similar to my 2007 goals.

#1: Chicago Marathon in 2:35.  (Failed miserably in 2007 with a 3:39:43.)

#2: Beat longstanding 5K PR of 16:20 and half marathon PR of 1:14:45. All other PRs are relatively soft and come from small sample sizes.

#3: Run at least 15 races. (Came close in 2007 with 11)

#4: Total of 3500 miles. (Fell short in 2007 with 3318)

#5: Run 500 quality miles (races, intervals, tempo runs, etc). Last year I did 413.

#6: Average 100 miles a week for an 8 week period before the marathon to see what high mileage could do for me. This is a new goal this year.

#7: Win a race. It's a stupid goal, but a guy has to win every once in a while.

#8: Develop and stick to a good core training plan. (My stomach is weak.)

#9: Improve my diet. This is a useless goal because there is no way to measure it. I am still working on haw I am going to do this. Probably bit by bit.

Yesterday's run left me pretty tired today. Apparantly my body is not used to running 12 miles at 6:50 pace anymore.

Today I did 10 miles very slow.

I got news this weekend that I will be doing my fellowship at the U of U. This means that 18 months from now I will be moving to Salt Lake for a year.

Feeling closer to normal today so I did what I estimate to be a mile of strides split into spurts varying from 20-45 seconds.

10 more miles today. It was one of those difficult days to go out and put in the miles. I was stuck at work several hours more than I planned and I really didn't feel like running when I got home. But I toughed it out and went running anyway.

AM: 6 miles

PM: 6 miles on treadmill with 2 tempo miles at 5:55. I don't really hope to gewt much benefit from this workout othher that hopefully keeping my legs in shape for future harder workouts.

Did just 6 miles today. I am feeling a little worn out. I'd rather be able to put in a good run tomorrow than a few extra miles today.

13 miles today. I started out at about 7:00 pace and gradually worked my way down to around 6:25. Finished with a mile in 6:06. Averaged 6:46.

10 easy miles. Even though I increased the pace and distance of yesterday's long run, today I did not feel as tired as I did after the last long run. I guess that this is good.

PM: added 2 more miles in the gym. This was really me accompying my wife when she wanted to walk on the treadmill. 

10 easy miles in the falling snow with just a dusting on the ground. The snow is the only thing I like about winter running. Actually I suppose I also like the fact that the path isn't crowded.

10 more easy miles.

Tonight is the informational meeting for my running club (Fleet Feet Chicago). I don't really need any informaton on the club, but I am thinking about joining their top tier racing team.

Due to a strange work schedule today's 10 miles were split into several shorter segment. This probably decreases their total value, but it is the best that I can do.

10 more miles. When I left it was 35degrees and lightly snowing. When I came home it was 25 and very windy, still snowing. The front of my jacket was frozen solid from the snow that had melted early in the run. I also had a fair amount of ice on my eyebrows. Loads of fun.

This might have been my last run outside for a while because temperatures are supposed to drop below zero this weekend.

Essentially a repeat of yesterday without the ice.

The cold temperatures came so I moved inside to the treadmill rather than venture out into negative temperatures and high winds.

10 miles on the treadmill at about 7:10 average pace.

10 more miles on the treadmill. Still cold outside.

AM: 6 miles outside. I stopped because I was cold. I was also running in a relatively new pair of shoes which was digging into the skin over my achilles tendon.

AM: 6 miles outside

PM: 6 miles on treadmill with 2 at 5:55 pace

After running 70 or more mles the last 3 weeks I was only able to put in 50 this week. I also took my first zero of the year. I'm doing a tough stretch at work right now including a stint of 50 out of 72 hours. On top of that most of my time is spent on my feet wearing 20 pounds of lead. Not exactly ideal conditions for running.

I will try to get back to 70+ miles, but uit will be tough because I will be working 10-13 hour shifts and I don't have a day off until the middle of February. 

10 easy miles. I wanted to run a little faster, maybe 6:45-7:00, but I wore my shoes with no traction and the path was pretty slick, so I took it safe and ran under control.

I pulled myself form the bed this morning to do 10 easy miles before work. There were not very fast, but I managed to stay out there for the full 75 minutes.

My work schedule is taking it's toll and I was only willing to run 4 miles yesterday and 4 miles today. I am probably on pace for only 55-60 this week.

Finished the month with 284 miles, 50 less than last January. I need to do better, but it might be a few months.