Here’s Yer Christmas Stocking Stuffer Post

Well, the year draws nigh and I have a grab bag of things to post with no particular theme so I start with the shortest. I want to give my highest recommendation to the new Tom Hanks movie “Charlie Wilson’s War”. It’s a very solid movie with great acting and it has some very funny parts to boot. Tom is one of my favorite actors but in my opinion the strongest performance was that of Philip Seymour Hoffman, another of my favorites. Anyway, very solid acting all around, this is a must see.

As I approach 2008 my goals are solidifying and I think my ultimate this year will be to become an “Iridium” level Marathon Maniac. One of the criteria for Iridium level is to do 9 marathons in 9 different states and/or foreign countries during one calendar year, that’s the criteria I am trying to plan now. Here is where I stand:

January – Mississippi
February – Alabama
March – Texas
May – Utah
June – Idaho
November - Arizona

So you see I have some months to play with though September is out because I am doing the Colorado Relay with some fellow Outlaws including the blogging Outlaws GEEKGRL, Pirate and Bones.

Two obvious ones to choose between are the Duke City Marathon and the Rio Grande Marathon, both in New Mexico and both toward the end of October. While Duke City is right in my back yard I’m kind of leaning toward the Rio Grande, which is about 250 miles south in Las Cruses mostly because I run and bike the route of the Duke City all the time. My other ideas include pretty much whatever I can find within, say, 800 miles of Albuquerque, preferably trail marathons or 50Ks. I’m thinking I should try and do as many of these on dirt as possible.

Ramping up to this much long distance running has been a real bear. I’m trying to keep my legs in good shape but they are hurting a bit, right now it seems to be my right foot that is trashed for whatever reason and my left knee complains a lot but overall I’m holding up and hoping my body settles in to this new madness. I am getting faster though. I went on a bit of a run this morning down along the single track along the Rio Grande and turned in a pretty good 15 miles though I tripped at mile 14 and just laid on the trail staring up at the cobalt blue sky for a couple minutes before dusting myself off and heading on in.

I did my comparison between my 2006 training and my 2007 training and it looks about like what I was shooting for, an increase in my running percentage and decrease in my bike percentage. I didn’t really have any plans for the swim though I notice I got in a little more distance in a little less time, which is encouraging. My overall average didn’t increase by more than 10%, which is good, and I think I’m getting to a decent average training volume. If I can give it one more bump up this year I may be competitive at bigger events but I think that my multi-marathon and ultra year this year will end up slowing me down a bit but who cares right, for me it’s all about the journey not the times…well, I’ll take good times too but I’m just sayin…

2006 totals
Bike: 385h 55m 14s - 6377.53 Miles
Run: 136h 28m 11s - 822.64 Miles
Swim: 79h 34m 39s - 213474.7 Meters

Total hours: 602
Weekly average: 11.6
Swim %: 13%
Bike %: 64%
Run %: 23%

2007 totals
Bike: 379h 26m 55s - 6013.18 Miles
Run: 180h 54m 48s - 1024.45 Miles
Swim: 75h 26m 25s - 215089.4 Meters

Total hours: 636
Weekly average: 12.2
Swim %: 12
Bike %: 60
Run %: 28

Merry and/or Happy This Time of Year Things!