I must admit getting back into the swing of training for races has been more difficult than past years. I left the country on a much needed overseas adventure to India (I plan on writing about this in an upcoming post) for 20 days, 3 of which were spent in New York City recovering from jet lag and catching up with friends. Once I returned from India, I spent a day at the office and headed to Iowa for the holidays. I spent 4 days in Iowa and returned to Minneapolis, where I became extremely ill with stomach cramps. Needless to say, I took it easy for the next two days and came back in to the office. By then it was New Year’s eve. Originally, I was thinking about doing something because it would be my first New Year’s eve in Minneapolis, instead, I wanted to take it easy on my body and not partake in excessive festivities.

Out of the entire month of December, I ran a grand total of 1 day (New Year’s eve). I proceeded to run on January 1st and 2nd as well to start warming up for my 2009 training plans. I intend to continue warming up with 3-4 miles runs during this week and possibly into next week and then start training for a marathon. I also want to add weight lifting back into the routine.

I am not yet sure which marathon I will be doing. I have some ideas and have narrowed it down to 2 or 3 possible choices. I do know that the race has to be in May or June and that I want to run a half marathon as part of the training.

Another new training thing for me will be the elimination of the consumption of beer while I am training for the marathon. Don’t get me wrong, I like beer alot. The problem is that it does not contribute to my overall fitness. I want to see what happens to my body when I able to eliminate beer for a substantial amount of time.

Overall, I am about 34 seconds off my 8min/mile pace. Not that I plan on running this pace in actually races, but I would like to get back to be able to run 6 miles in 48 minutes. Running at a 8:34min/mile pace isn’t bad considering I didn’t run for 30 days in December. For right now, I will have to be content with that.