Here’s to 2007

I’m not one for resolutions (if you want to change yourself, go do it, you don’t have to wait until the calendar changes) and I’m not so much into year-end navel-gazing, either. I’d rather look at now and tomorrow, but whatever works for you is fine...

I think I had a pretty good year running my butt off, and from the sound of it, most of the running folks stopping and reading and surfing around and commenting did, too. I am my own worst critic, and that criticism carries over into the general population, as the title of this ole’ running blog tells you. Then again, you knew that. Anyway, many of you out there are like me and know well you’re strengths and weaknesses. And you try hard to do better, or just have fun, or both, and sometimes it works out and sometimes it doesn’t. But I think it usually does work out because just being out there and finishing one more damned race is enough sometimes. Especially the older you get, though try telling me that at the finish line of my next ‘hit the wall’ race.

So, I guess I can look back (didn’t I just type out something saying I don’t do that?) and be happy with what I accomplished. 19 races, including 3 marathons in the fall, a surprise PR in the 5-mile, and a lot of training just to get through all of that crap. And my running log tells me I finished 2420 miles this year; apparently, that’s a one-way trip to the outskirts of San Diego from NYC…

Now that I have a pain in my left knee, a tired right Achilles tendon, and a full-blown dread of winter training, I’ll have to start all this up again tomorrow.

And today I signed up for the Patriot Half in July and checked out my local pool facility where they are all set to get me going on the path to chlorine ingestion. The usual suspects out there got me all hopped up on their stories of brick-training and shit, and now I’ve gone and done it.

WELL. I know many of you out there have your goals for ’08 already lined up, even some of them that are real soon, so here’s to your goals and may we all meet them somehow (whether it’s a first marathon, an ironman, an ironman on the other side of the world, new races, whatever). Thanks go out to all of you who shared your joy and pain and comments over the last year, I know it helped me and I hope some of my rants and obvious observations showed you that running and pain and aggravation and failure and triumph happens to us all. Of course, it doesn’t just happen, we make it happen, so all the best to everybody out there who keep at it in ‘08.

As the annoying trust-fund anti-Christ kids in my neighorhood often scream into their cell phones, ‘like, you guys are so awesome, except when you finish some stupid race, and then you’re all gross and stuff, and I’m like, so over it…. Shut up!’

Happy ’08!