New Year Resolutions

The beginning of the year and time to think of hopes and objectives.

On Sunday I sat down with my notebook and thought of all of the things I ought to be doing in 2009. The list contained jobs that had been hanging around (in some cases for years), areas of personal development, resolutions, and objectives. At the end I couldn’t decide whether I was impressed or depressed at reaching the bottom of the second page. The only definite conclusion was that there was plenty of room for improvement.

So here are my six running resolutions:

1) First and most important is that I will keep running. This may sound a daft thing to say but I think it is important to examine the reason for spending all this time and energy and consciously decide whether it is worth it or not. In this case the answer is fairly obvious as I have only to compare the satisfaction I find on runs with the lassitude that descends when I stop. As long as running makes me feel more alive and alert I will continue.

2) Improve my annual E Number, as explained in this post. I aim to raise it from 10 to at least 12. This resolution has an important consequence for my record keeping as I will have to be more accurate about my mileage as up till now I have only really bothered about time and heart rate. It could be that I will have to succumb to wearing one of those GPS thingies after all, either that or be a bit more assiduous with Gmaps.

3) Lose a stone in weight. I am probably making the same resolution three quarters of the population but I have a practical reason: excess weight makes running long distances much harder. The Jeff Galloway Marathon book contains a chart of how much older your legs feel if you are 10-20lbs overweight – think 5- 10 years. Now these figures can only be conjecture but I had never thought of weight in that way before. I am old enough as it is so those extra years make me decrepit.

4) Run at least one marathon and three half-marathons and a 10k. As yet I have not decided which races or even whether I should try for a spring marathon or leave it till autumn. I have never started a spring marathon and so part of me thinks this is something I should do but it is balanced by the fact that I prefer to run in clement weather and September is a better month for long runs than March. Whatever, it is a decision I need to make quickly. For the half marathons I notice a number of fine bloggers are doing Reading, so that might be a possibility.

5) Be more upright. I do not think there is a correct style for running. Within certain parameters I believe we all have our own biomechanics and evolve a style to accommodate our particular imbalances. However there are some basic principles, among which is that the upper body should be relaxed and upright. You should not bend from the waist, which is what I tend to do on longer runs. This year I will make a conscious effort to work on this particular element of my style.

6) Write 104 blog posts. I was very impressed that last year I wrote precisely that number i.e. two a week. I want to see if I can maintain that average.