2010 looks to be a good year.

Training for the past week has been very satisfying. I was worried for a bit that my post marathon heel injury would ruin my training plans for the winter. However, to my great relief, I seem to be 100%. When I started running again 3 weeks ago, I did 15 miles. Last week I upped it to 20 miles. For this week I'm up to 24 miles and it's only Friday. I'm sticking to Halhigdon protocol of having Friday off. Then I'll be aiming for another 15 miles this weekend to get the total up to 39 miles. If I'm able to rack up that kind of volume on my third week back I'd be ecstatic. I have my fingers crossed.

Despite ramping my miles on the run, my swimming has not suffered much if at all. I'm entering the water with a tad more fatigue than usual, but that's not affecting my ability to work on my form. Pace times at cruise effort levels have been dropping like rocks for the past 3 months... from 1:30 to 1:26 to 1:23 and now hitting close to 1:21. I'm really hopeful that in the next few months I would have developed the necessary muscles to maintain that form for 1500 meters. If that is the case then my goal of hitting 2:10 will be that much easier.

Suffice to say, I'm already looking forward to racing this season!

Other than that... the only thing that concerns me is how cold it is outside. For the past few seasons that I've been doing all my winter runs indoors- either on a treadmill or at the gym's 200m track. This year I've resolved to do my running outside. Unfortunately the predicted high for tomorrow is 12F. Not very comforting. Either way, the plan is to get in two runs for a total of 8 miles. It's going to be paaaainful. The only thing that will keep me sane is the thought of kicking some serious ass in 2011 back in the motherland.