Month End (December 2008) and Year End Summary

Well the race report that marked the 'Year End' for racing for me took forever to write. Sorry about that I hope you all enjoyed it. I'm just now getting to my monthly review and in this case my yearly review also. I'll start with just going over my December numbers then I'll take a brief look at 2008 at a whole.

My Monthly numbers look pretty good, my biggest problem was that I was really sporadic with my workouts. With the time off from work, and the bad, cold weather I didn't get out as much as I wanted. When the month was over I had only worked out 12 of the 31 days this month, and never more than 3-days in a row. Still I was able to accomplish a few milestones.

1. Ran a new PB 'long run' of 6.2 miles in 1:08:29 on 12/20/08. Not bad for the first time at this distance. I should be able to improve this time easily in the future.

2. Total miles per week PB at 39.5 miles done week ending 12/6/08.

3. Logged 67.7 miles for the months total - that's second only to November's total.

4. PB 3.1 mile run of 30:45 on 12/29/08.

So I'm happy with my progress this month other than the fact I didn't get out as much as I wanted. My original goal was to log about 75 miles which I came short of. Physically I feel pretty fresh. I can tell my next step of development should be made with more core work and leg strength. Conditioning is coming along nicely but these other two facets are holding me back at this point. I'm doing the work so we'll see what transpires in the first quarter of 2009.

My Yearly summary is a little different since I don't have a full year recorded and I only started this blog on Oct 13th 2008. So it's a little hard to see the overall picture just yet. The biggest thing is that I've really taken running back into my life. I've embraced it as an everyday item and I'm enjoying the time I spend getting better. On July 4th 2008 I clocked a 36:27 5k and have already taken almost 6 mins off that time. I feel stronger and better about myself, and my self confidence is starting to rise as my 5k times start to lower. Last year I logged over 400 miles (my goal was 365 miles) so overall I'm happy with the effort.

In the next few days I'll be setting some long-term goals for this year. I'm adjusting my goals a little and I really need to decide if I'm going to do some longer distance races this year and then put it down in writing.

Keep Steppin'

Bob