Running Report: 1st Quarter 2010

I like to take time periodically and evaluate my goals and the progress that I have made towards them. I suppose that is the therapist side of me, it is what I do at work all day. The end of the 1st quarter of the year seemed like a great time to pause for a minute and look at where I have been and where I am headed. I don't know about you, but it is pretty hard to imagine that the 1st quarter of 2010 is already behind us.

My running goals for 2010 are to:
1. Run 10 half marathons during the year 2010.
2. Record new personal records (PRs) in each distance.
3. Run 1,000 miles in 2010.

Let's start with the 1st one--Run 10 half marathons in the year 2010. I have run 4 half marathons during the 1st quarter. If I were to do 4 every quarter then I would be way ahead of the game; however, this is Texas and there typically aren't many half marathons during the summer months. I am right on track with the ones that are penciled in on my calendar and I have a couple of "back up" races in case my plans change for any reason. The 4 that I ran so far could not have been any different from one another. Two of them (Texas Half on 1/30 and Grasslands Half on 3/20) involved some of the most extreme weather conditions that I have ever run through. The Texas Half included a 25 degree temperature and a 13 degree windchill with a strong north wind whipping right off of White Rock Lake. I THOUGHT that was the hardest one I would encounter this year--until the Grasslands Half came along. That one included some of the same wind and near freezing temperatures, but included an added bonus--MUD and lots of it! The Cowtown Half and the Austin Half had some of the most perfect weather that I have ever run through. My subgoal for this goal was to run most of them in 2:00:10 or less. I'm pretty close on that with the Texas Half and Austin (ok, it was 2:00:12 or something like that) being in the ballpark. Cowtown would have been close too, except for that terrible traffic snafu. I also wanted to try something new and outside of my comfort zone and I think that the Grasslands Trail Half filled that subgoal. The 2nd quarter includes 2 half marathons, so far, they are Big D Texas Half in April and Heels and Hills in May. I'm ready and excited for them!

Goal #2--Record new PRs in all distances. For this goal, a PR will only count during an officially timed race. Of course, I am always looking for new course records on my training runs, but those are unofficial. I am off to a great start with this one. On January 2 I recorded my 1st new PR in the 10K (55:45) and on January 17 I got my 1st new PR in the 15K (1:19:30). The 15K PR still seems like some kind of miracle race--with an average pace of 8:30. I have not approached that pace in a race since that day, it seems like things just came together. That race was so much fun. I was chasing Erik the whole way and caught him around mile 7. We sprinted the end--head to head--and he beat me by 2 seconds! Maybe that is the secret to fast paced races--find a cute boy to chase. I still need to get PRs in the 5K, half marathon, and possibly 20K. I have not attempted a 5K race and might not until July 4. I am not sure when I will do any 20K races and my half marathon PR is still fairly recent, hopefully another PR will come later in the year.

Goal #3--Run 1,000 miles in 2010. I am right on track with that one too--totals are 88.41 for January, 72.76 for February, and 90.03 for March. That brings the grand total to 251.2. Multiply that by 4 quarters and the total is 1004.8. I was looking at my March numbers and noticed that the total would be around 87.5 miles with just my scheduled runs. I picked up an additional 2.5 miles before boot camp yesterday to bring the total to 90 and some change. I think that those little "extra" miles are going to make the difference in my quest for 1,000 miles.

So there you have it--the 1st quarter's running report. So far, so good! I am having fun and getting stronger, which is the utlimate goal. 2010 is still young--stay tuned for more adventures!