Well, its official - 2003 was the year in which I became a runner. Not a particularly fast one, or a traditionally successful one as measured by race results, but a runner nonetheless. You know what? I love it. Running has given me more satisfaction than any of the other physical activities I’ve dabbled with, even including things like mountain biking that I still try to get out and do whenever possible.

Let’s recap. Early in the year I ran a couple of 5K races, such as the wildflower run in Fredricksburg and, later, the Memorial 5K. I was turning in times in the 33:00 range. I knew that that was pretty slow, and would have really liked to turn in a sub-30… that was my last 5K of the year though, so it remains my PR time. Anyway, I’d been talking to my friend Marcus about his marathon training (he ran Motorola 2002) and decided that it could help me - I was going to give it a go.

Was I nuts? Here I was, barely able to run 5K (and not really able to run 5K without taking a walk-break) and I was signing up for the marathon? Well, I guess it was the right kind of nuts, because I did it anyway. August 23rd brought me to RunTex (Riverside) for our first pace-race, to find out how slow we were. I did two miles in 20:25 (probably a record pace for me). I did whole thing completely anaerobically, panting, sweating, and generally about to fall on my face at the end of it. Not a pretty sight, I can assure you.

Three months later, at the turkey trot, I turned in a 45:43 time, or about a 9:08 pace. I was annoyed, because I didn’t do as well as I wanted to on the long Red River stretch, and slowed down even more after the last waterstop where a helpful volunteer called out, “One more mile to go!” - more like 1/2, but I checked my time and got a little demoralized. So I’m still learning race management, no big deal. But when I looked back at how far I’d done in three months, I was pretty happy with myself.

For the year I have 216 miles (+/-) of running. Hardly a record! Its a start though, and the running bug has really bitten me pretty well. I hope to race Buda as my first real long race (still nursing an IT band injury though, we’ll see what happens). If I go, I’m going to do it as a training run (slow and steady), since my longest single run to date is 25K. Again, that’s far from an ultra but a great PR for me.

Benefits? I’m feeling healthy, my heart rate is much lower, and I’ve made a ton of new friends. My exercise wardrobe is full of nifty but expensive clothes, I keep an eye on how far I run in a pair of shoes, and I’ve even started this Running blog. Drawbacks? Well, I’m a little concerned about injury, and it does take a decent amount of time - especially for my long runs (and I’m pretty slow - 10:30 pace).

For this year, my main goal is to run Motorola (goal time: sub-5:00). Its may sound funny, but Moto seems a lot more attainable since I think of it as the first of many. So I’m also going to run another marathon in the fall - putting my name into the hat for New York, just to see (I honeymooned up there in early October this year and it would be a good time to go back). I’d like to enter into some more races, especially at 5/10K distances, and work on improving my speed. And, next fall? The distance challenge.

My main goal for the long-term is to make this a life habit. More concretely, I’d like to take my 10:30 pace self to Boston in 2008. For the record, that would require a 7:17 pace over the entire course. I picked that date because I’m going to run my first marathon before I’m 30 (by, oh, 5 days) and I’d really like to run the classic marathon before I’m 35. Realistic? Who knows. I have a long way to go as far as getting my speed up, but I think that its attainable.

As an aside, I changed my blog title to something a little less cute and a little more searchable. I’ll be interested to see what, if anything, happens to my hit count as a result.

Anyway, that’s my running recap and goals for the new year. I hope that your years have all gone as well as mine did, and that 2004 is good for all of us.

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