Posted January 16, 2008

First Race of 2008

I still haven’t gotten used to writing 2008. I keep writing 2007 when I am dating documents or writing checks, but the first race of the year has served as a wake-up call that we are definitely no longer in 2007. The Olympic year is here and for everyone training for the Beijing Olympics, we can sense a clock ticking.

2008 has gotten off to a strong start. For the first two months after the LaSalle Bank Chicago Marathon, I was feeling a little sluggish. I had built my mileage back up and started doing workouts, but I still didn’t feel any “pop” in my legs when I tried to do shorter intervals and all uphill running felt much harder than usual. Seasoned marathoners had warned me that this might happen, but I had hoped that I could avoid it.

I had planned to start the year off with the Aramco Houston Half-Marathon on January 13, but at the beginning of December, I started to worry that I would not be ready in time to race. Last year’s race had been a fun way to start off 2007. My teammate Ryan Hall had set an American record and I had run a PR at the distance. I had hoped to start 2008 off in the same way so I kept plugging away at the training. Luckily, things started to take a turn for the better a week before Christmas. Maybe the holiday atmosphere, Christmas decorations, family parties, holiday baking, and gift giving were the cure that I needed to re-energize my running. Or maybe my legs were just needed those two and half months to fully recover from the Chicago Marathon. Or maybe I got an extra dose of inspiration when I ran on the marathon Trials course while I was in Massachusetts visiting my parents for the holidays. Whatever the stimulus for that turnaround, I’m glad that it happened when it did.