We had a very nice weekend in Connecticut.  This was the second time Jillian has been to her grandparents' house, but the first time was when she was only 6 days old, and it only lasted a couple of hours.  This time she stayed there for the whole weekend.  We got to visit with other friends and family as well. 

 

There are plenty of pictures from the weekend, and some day I'll get them posted on her website.  I know that I am falling way behind on updating her website, so I will make sure that I get to it soon.  Hey, at least I've been posting to my blog here a little more often.  There's always some give and take, eh? 

 

Anyway, the point it, we all had a very nice weekend, and we made it back home safely...

There's a reason why I don't bet on sports:  I'm usually wrong when I make predictions.  At least I'm wrong often enough to make gambling unprofitable, and thus not fun.  The NFL playoffs this year has been no exception. 

 

I would not have done very well picking games this year.  Before the playoffs started, I had actually thought that the Giants might struggle with Tampa.  I thought the Giants were a better team than the Bucs, but that the Giants had spent all their energy in that meaningless regular season finale against the Patriots, and thus might be flat for the playoffs.  I was sure wrong about that!  It seems as though that effort was just what the Giants needed to get in gear.

 

As for the Patriots, they've been quite consistent in the win column, but not so much against the spread.  Early in the season, they were killing everyone.  But lately, their games have been much closer and they haven't covered a point spread in a while. 

 

So what does this mean for the Super Bowl?  Yes, the Giants have been hot.  But the Patriots are one of the greatest teams of all time.  I suppose the Giants have a chance.  But I have a hard time seeing the Patriots come this far undefeated and then not win the most important game.  I'm surprised to see the Giants this far in the playoffs, but that pales in comparison to how surprised I'd be if they win on Feb 3.  I'm not sure if the Patriots will cover a double-digit point spread, but I'm fairly certain they'll win the game.

 

Then again, I'm often wrong...

Today I completed one of the longest runs I've ever done outside of a marathon: 21.7 miles.  I know it's not the longest because I know I've done 22 miles at least once.  If I weren't so lazy, I could check my running log.  But the point is, today's run was a very good one.  I was unhappy in the Philadelphia Marathon because I went out too fast and got tired, thus I practically limped in to the finish.  So in recent training runs, I have been working on finishing strong. 

 

And today's run worked out well in that department.  My 21st mile was my fastest one, which certainly shows that I was still going strong.  I felt like I could have kept going, and I think I could have completeld 26.2 miles if I wanted to.  But I figured that wasn't a smart idea, and 21.7 is certainly good enough.  Well, my next marathon is only 3 weeks away, so we shall soon see if I can finish strong when it counts...

How about one more recap of 2007.  This time, I'd like to mention that it was an extremely good year for my sports teams.  Three championship in one year from my three favorite teams!  (The Red Sox, and the Gators' football and basketball teams).  How often does that happen for anybody?  So yeah, 2007 was a good year, and I can't expect that type of thing to happen much, perhaps never again. 

 

As for the start of 2008, the Gator football team didn't do so well.  It was an ugly game against Michigan a couple weeks ago.  But oh well.  I refuse to get upset becuase my teams don't win every game.  I think I'd had enough success lately, and I don't want to get too spoiled about it.

 

Changing the subject, Jillian has really taken to smiling a lot.  I love coming home from work and seeing my daughter smile at me.  I gotta get some new smiling pictures of her up on her website.  Keep your eyes peeled for that...

Happy New Year!!  I'm going to kick off this year with a report of my running exploits from the just-completed year, and then get into a forecast for 2008...

 

Brief 2006 recap
In the latter stages of 2006, I had set a 20k PR on Labor Day (1:46:22), a 5k PR on Thanksgiving (23:22), a marathon PR in December (4:04:56), and finished the year with 1202 miles, just beating my goal of 1200. I was a little less than thrilled with the marathon, but a PR is still a PR.

2007 recap
So I entered 2007 with the following goals:
1) Remain injury-free
2) Run 3 marathons and set a new PR under 4 hours
3) Run the New Haven 20k for the fourth straight year, and get a new PR
4) New 5k PR
5) 1350 total miles

I had no races scheduled for the first few months of the year, so I just worked on building up my base. In March I logged 186.2, which is still the most I've ever logged in one month. (It helps to have 5 weekends in the month).

In April I went down to Long Branch NJ for the second year in a row. In 2006, I had run the New Jersey Marathon as my second marathon. In 2007, I competed on a relay team with three friends from my 30s online running group.  It was my first 30s meetup of the year.

The following week, I ran The Flying Pig Marathon in Cincinnati in a new PR of 3:48:56. This was another large meetup of 30s, and was a great weekend.

In my first recovery run after the marathon, I felt a little twinge in my hip/groin area. I was hoping it was just a side-affect of having just run a marathon. But it did linger for a while and affected my running for the next couple months.

However, I still managed to run another marathon only 3 weeks later. This one was the Vermont City Marathon in Burlington VT. Perhaps partly due to the sore leg, I was quite a bit slower, and I completed this one in 4:17:30.

The leg was bothering me more in June, and the running was kept to a minimum. In fact, I logged only 53.0 miles of running June. I did manage 123 miles of biking, but it's still what I would call a down month. I think I needed the rest.

The numbers increased a little in July, but the leg was still slightly gimpy. I ran my only two 5ks of the year within 4 days of each other -- one in 22:53 and the other in 22:51. So there was no new PR set in the 5k category, but I'm okay with that because of the small number of attempts.

By August, marathon training was back. Labor Day brought another 30s meetup at the New Haven 20k. And I set a new PR by exactly 4 minutes.

In November, I ran the Philadelphia Marathon, in another new PR (barely) of 3:48:12. This was the largest 30s meetup yet, and was certainly the most memorable for me because of the wonderful gift of a jogging stroller presented to me by the group. Thanks again, to everyone who contributed!

I blew past my goal of 1350 miles with plenty of time remaining. I ended the year with 1463.2 miles. That would be more than enough to get from New York City to Oklahoma City, or from Los Angeles to Dallas. I'm quite pleased with that...

So in summary, I definitely hit 3 of the 5 goals, and definittely missed one (the 5k PR), although like I said I'm okay with that one. I suppose I didn't quite remain injury-free, but it was close. The leg soreness may have slowed me down a wee bit, but didn't stop me. And that's what really counts.

2008 Goals
As I head into another new year, I've set the following goals for myself:

1) Remain injury-free. I think this is an obvious desire. And the rest of the goals below will of course depend on meeting that.

2) Run 4 marathons, and set a new PR under 3:45.
I've got Birmingham AL lined up for February and Eugene OR lined up for May. And I believe that I will be able to add Madison WI or San Diego CA as a third marathon. (At this point, San Diego looks a lot more likely, logistically). That would leave just one more marathon to run in the second half of the year, which is certainly attainable. And given my continued progress over the last couple years, I think I should be able to shave off a few minutes from my best time without too much trouble.

3) Run the New Haven 20k for a fifth straight year, and get a new PR. I don't see a problem meeting this.

4) Run a Half Marathon somewhere and get a new PR. I've only run one HM race in my life, and that was a hilly course on a hot humid summer day, which resulted in a time of 2:01:50. I've gone farther than that in less time many times on training runs, so it'll be easy for me to accomplish this goal, and long as I make an effort to schedule a HM race at some point.

5) New 5k PR. This is another one that I think will be attainable, as long as I put the effort into it. I know I've improved my running since I last set a 5k PR in Nov 2006, so if I am 100% healthy, I see no reason why I can't do better.

6) 1600 total miles. This would be an increase of about 140 miles over 2007. If I can avoid down months like I had this past June and July, I think I should be able to accomplish this as well.

And that's it.  I wish everyone a happy and healthy 2008...