my makeup may be flaking

I ran around the island with Quinn, then I added on a tempo run afterwards.

Ran around the island feeling much better than previously. I've been having some hip/hamstring problems that are kind of preventing me from doing workouts right now. Today was a big improvement.

I ran in the mercer slough today and barely had any problems with my hip. I've not been keeping track of my pace which is dumb. But I'm not dogging it on my runs.

My last run of the year. My leg felt pretty good today despite a fast pace. I didn't have to stop once to stretch it out. Incredibly I ran almost exactly the same number as miles as last year. However, I got there in a much different way!

Back in January of 2009 I was rolling. I did two races in one day on the 11th,winning the second (a ten mile trail race) in a course record. Two days later I hurt my foot and barely ran for the rest of the month. I raced my way back into shape in Febuary, and in March I kind of "exploded" at the Ogden 10miler (first place) and the running of the leopards (15:03 while limping at the end). Then I had an uneven April. I completely fell apart at the Striders half marathon,before having my best race ever two weeks later at the Salt Lake City Half. Then I dropped out of the striders 30k with Tendonitis.

In May I trained ridiculously hard for the marathon and almost ran myself into the ground. I tapered pretty agressively and ran a nice PR at the Seattle Rock n Roll at the end of June. I burst into tears when I was done, ahh memories.

My next race was mid July, 10 miles at Cougar mountain. This race completely destroyed me as I still wasn't recovered from the marathon. I was limping around for a while and trained sparsely until the beginning of August when I got swine flu the day after feeling some PF pain for the first time.

I ran some fairly unspectacular times in the fall. But I could tell from my workouts that I was going to run a decent half despite everything. I then managed to get 4th at the Seattle half in a new PR despite a tough course and tough conditions.

I had other racing plans for this winter, but I put it all on hold to allow myself to "get right".

The end result: 4 race wins:

PRs at every distance from 12K to Marathon and an aided 15:03 5k.

If every year is like 2009 I can't complain, but what I really want is to win a competitive race. It seems that all my race wins have been races where I've led from the start and never been challenged. It feels good to win those races, but the races where you have to battle with someone else are more fun.

Goals for the upcoming year.

1. Run in Boston like I did in Seattle (that will mean well under 2:30 I think)

2. Be competitive at shorter distances of the summer. (sub 16 at Heart of Holladay for one thing.)

3. Win the seattle half marathon and break 70mins this time!

4. Run 4000 miles.

5. At the year healthy.

Ok, kicking off the new year with a bang here.

Just ran around the Island in 1:19:44 today. (it's a pretty hilly half marathon). I had some weird aches and pains in my legs so I started out slowly running only 20:34 for the first 3.2 miles. (I have weird markers here on mercer Island). I then ran 59:11 for the next 9.9 miles (5:59 pace). Given the hills this was the equivalent of 5:46 pace. This was all depite a punishing headwind for the last 4 miles and some driving rain. In fact I picked up the pace a little at the end despite the lousy conditions. I felt like I definitely could have kept this pace going for quite a bit more!

Easy day. I had a few aches and pains to begin with.