Timing is everything

10:30 AM - Auburn - 9 miles, 1:04:00.

Coldest day of the young year thus far and despite everyone's bitching and moaning it actually wasn't all that bad of a morning for running outside. Of course, it helped that I didn't have to be into work until this afternoon, allowing me to head out at the unusual hour of 10:30, which is apparently when Mr. Wind takes his coffee break during the winter months. Good timing on my part, I guess.

The run itself wasn't anything worth writing much about, just an easy hour on the roads to get the blood flowing a little bit. I would have liked to to do a few sets of drills afterward, but snot was starting to freeze inside my nostrils so I decided to put those off until tomorrow when I have the BSC gym at my disposal. My legs, and the rest of my body for that matter, feel recovered from Tuesday night's track session, which is encouraging. My next hard effort will be Sunday in Raynham when I take my third straight stab at one of my favorite winter races, the Frostbite 15K. Last year I found myself in pretty good form and pulled out the win with a solid effort and a still-standing PR of 48:40 in conditions very similar to this morning. I'm not anywhere near the shape I was in at this point last year, but I'm looking forward to getting another good workout under my belt and having fun with friends afterward.

As far as where I'm heading in terms of my training and racing, right now the two main goals are to keep things consistent and stay healthy, otherwise I'm not going anywhere. There is no marathon in cards for the early part of 2009, so training for the time being will be geared toward lowering the track times listed along the right side of this page. Of course, the hope is that proceeding in this manner will make my next block of marathon-specific training that much more effective.

In regard to races, Kevin and I decided that the Gate River Run in mid-March would be a good short-term target to shoot for over the winter. Plus, the race directors down there in Jacksonville are really putting a strong emphasis on the club competition this year, providing a perfect opportunity for a handful of us from NB Boston to strut our stuff on the national level. That said, I'm very much looking forward to taking this little sojourn south in a little less than eight weeks time. From there it will be all systems go through the short summer track season, the first time in five years I'll be shifting my full focus toward running ridiculously fast around the ol' 400-meter oval. Not gonna lie, it's got me kinda excited.