Four miles yesterday. Really frustrating if you ask me. I am amazed how much fitness I’ve lost in the last three or four weeks while on the shelf. The good news is that I have no pain in my hip or leg. This after last week’s 18 miles. The bad is that I am really struggling to make it through the easy runs. Just a couple of weeks ago I was running 9:45 easy miles. Right now I’m struggling to make it through 4 miles at 10:20 pace. There is *no way* that I am ready to start a marathon cycle.

I know - as much as I preach patience, when it comes to me I’m not the same.

Made my first run of the New Year yesterday. It was cold. It was wet. It was perfect running weather! The only thing that wasn’t perfect was me! The goal was a 12 mile run around the Back Bay with the Cal Coast club. But, I was kind of like a football team committing a penalty in the red zone. Whistles. Flags. “Half the distance to the Goal” Yup - I made it out and back six miles.

It was a tough call. I was well within my target heart rate.

My last blog was about some of my accomplishments during 2008. I was thinking back to how I really had no goals for the year once I completed the RnR marathon. It’s a bit of a wonder that I accomplished what I did while just wandering down the path!

So, it’s time to set some running goals for 2009! Here they are:

1. Build my base to 35 - 45 miles per week
2. Put in 1500 miles during the year
3. Run one marathon
4. Keep it fun!

Shooting low? Maybe. But of the four goals, I think #4 is the highest priority for me.

If you are here, then you’ve made it to 2009. Happy New Year!

Yesterday was 2 days in a row without pain! Yay! Four more miles! I hope I’m back on track. I still feel slow, but afterwards, I analyzed my run data and noticed that my recovery pace yesterday was *exactly* the same as the same runs three weeks ago. Maybe all isn’t lost after all.

It’s also time to look back at 2008. I entered the year with only one running goal in mind - running a marathon. I managed to do that in June. The rest of the year was icing on the cake!

Well, I finally got out for a short run. It felt, well, weird. I felt slow. I felt out of breath. But the significance in what I didn’t feel - pain! On the one hand I am pretty excited. On the other I am discouraged. I felt like I had just started making some big strides (no pun intended) in my running - knocking over two minutes off my 10K PR, running more efficiently, going longer each week, etc. Yesterday I felt as though I was laboring to get my four miles done.

Well, it is finally here. My web site is up and I am now taking subscriptions to my monthly coaching newsletter. My site is www.askcoachb.com.

This newsletter will guide you through to living a healthier lifestyle. it is not another diet or exercise program. I do not believe in diets and do not train anyone to diet. I teach people how to change thier lives a little at a time so there is very little effort. It becomes second nature after awhile.

The exercises are set up to be completed in 10 to 20 minutes.

I had hoped to get out for a run yesterday to get things back on track. Because of my tooth pain on Friday, I had revisited my dentist, received some more work on the affected tooth, and actually had a decent night’s sleep. I woke up somewhat refreshed, relieved that I didn’t need to resort to vicodin. I sat down with my cup of coffee, took a huge swig, and spit it out in agony! Something that I had never even thought of was the effect the heat would have on everything else going on. I spent the rest of my day in absolute torture.

Okay - I am itching to get back out. I want to test out the groin pull to see how it will react after a couple of days off. The issue right now are my teeth. (See my blog entry from a couple days ago: http://therunningfatguy.blogspot.com/2008/12/unscheduled-rest.html) I have been in absolute agony since Wednesday night. I had to resort to vicodin for the pain yesterday.

Hopefully things might be changing though. The pain subsided in the evening, and I actually got a few hours of uninterrupted sleep. This morning though the pain is back.

Yesterday was interesting. I was planning on a four mile run to see how my hip adbuctors were going to react to two days in a row. But, I didn’t sleep particularly well Monday night because of a persistent toothache. Throughout the day the pain became worse. At times it became absolutely unbearable. I finally threw in the towel and decided to call a dentist. I found one that could see me at 7:30 PM (he is my brother-in-law’s wife’s ex-husband). I got there and xrays were taken. The xrays were quite an eye opener! Remember that bike crash back in June? (http://therunningfatguy.blogspot.com/2008/06/down-for-while.html).