Starting the Year Off Right

The new year is a time of celebration with friends and loved ones. It's also a time to think of new beginnings and assess the year gone by and examine hopes for the year ahead. At least that's one way of looking at it.

In this spirit, I found myself awake a bit earlier than my bedtime would indicate, standing in the freezing cold weather, waiting to run 6.2 miles. Why, do you ask, would I put myself through this? On a holiday, nonetheless? Not to mention that I paid for the privilege of (what some may believe, anyway) tormenting myself?

This morning, I ran the Twenty 10k. In October, I had signed up with a training group, subsequently trained for 10 weeks (mostly sticking with the plan!), and registered for the race. It was my first race over a 5k distance, and I felt a good way to launch myself back into the running lifestyle.

After being injured last March training (inconsistently) for a half-marathon, I thought I would tackle something between a 5k distance and 13.1 miles. Hence, the 10k.

It went really well: it was chilly, but I was ready for that since I'd been training in chilly weather a few days a week, and even though I didn't run Wednesday when I was supposed to, I managed to get my last long run in and even ran consistently through the Christmas holidays. And my hard work paid off.

My goal was to finish in under 60 minutes, and I accomplished that. I also placed third in my age group, which makes me feel even better about my running--and makes me want to be faster. I've already signed up for a half-marathon group along with several of the Twenty 10k training group.

So here's to starting the new year off right--and hoping that I am able to keep running and have a great running year.