Going for 1,000 miles

Over on Daily Mile today there is a lot of talk about goals for this spring and summer. This is one reason I love doing the Shamrock in March — I’ve gotten a big race out of the way. Just less than three months into this year, I’m near 250 miles already. Usually, though, I slack off and have a pretty rotten April, which leads to a poor showing in May, which leads to “starting over” with training in June. The problem in the past couple of years is that I haven’t had any bigger goals to focus on. I’ve either been injured or worried about being injured, so I don’t do anything in the nicest months to run.

But now that I’m healthy and I’m all jazzed up about running again, it’s time that I have some more hardcore goals. Injuries be damned.

As I’ve hinted at before, I am now officially making it a goal to run 1,000 miles for the calendar year. I really wanted to set this goal at the end of 2009, but I needed to see how training for the Shamrock Half would go. I needed to make sure that a few days after that race that I wasn’t hurt and that I could keep running. Well, I can keep going. While I have some soreness, I’ve run twice in three days since the race, something I would have never considered doing in the past. While I’ll likely tone it down a bit, it’s time for me to focus on the scope of the year and getting to quadruple digits for the first time ever.

1.15.10

OK … so from now on posts with no main subject with get a date at a headline. Why? … Because I can. 😉

* Tomorrow’s weather is supposed to be gorgeous. By “gorgeous” I mean not below 40 degrees. Shorts weather, when running anyway. Considering the way this winter has been so far, it’ll feel quite warm. I would love to get out and run for 6 or 7 miles, but I’ve already gotten my long run in for the week. I’m fighting myself to take my own advice — don’t start off doing too much, build mileage slowly, etc. Then the devil on my other shoulder says it would be fine, I built up a base a long time ago. Then there’s the part of me that forgets that I haven’t ridden a bike in a while either, so we’ll see.

* I’m on Daily Mile now. Click here to find me if you’re there. Everyone tells me it’s like Facebook for runners. So far it looks cool. I’m only using it to log my running miles right now.

* Tonight for “31 in 31” I did some lunges. Just when I think my legs don’t need extra work, I do something like that. Wow. Just wow. I also did some more intense sit-ups than usual. It’s weird how well I feel with running and then how bad I can feel doing something else.

* The scale is already frustrating me. Last week I was down 3 pounds, only to be up a pound this week. So I guess a net 2 pounds lost so far this year isn’t too bad. I’m not ready yet to talk more about that.

* My friend Jeff over at Running for My Sanity would like some advice with races this year. Please head over there and help him out. I’ve given my 2 cents worth, but some I think it would be good for him to hear from a few other people.