Goodbye and hello!

Goodbye to 2010 and hello to 2011 of course.  From a running perspective 2010 was a forgettable year for yours truly due to the knee injury.  I was pretty much in a holding - hobbling - phase for much of the summer and early Fall.  Pretty solidly back now so time for a few goals for the year:

Post more frequently this year.  Over the first two full years of this blog, I posted 73 and 75 times, respectively.  Maybe that is my blog writing limit - I hope not.  A twice weekly frequency ought to bump that up to near 100.  Let's put that down as goal #1.

Set a new 5k PR.  I was hoping to give that a shot this year.  It never was on with just one good leg.  So reset and try again in 2011.  The spring will probably be too soon (need to lose some weight first) and I am likely to be in Africa for practically all of March.  So most realistic shot would be early Fall of 2011.  

Run some different races.  That shouldn't be too difficult.  Plenty of opportunities around here.  Might start with the Rockets Run 5K on January 22.

Pick up on my French language lessons again.  It is about time to tackle the Rosetta Stone French lessons again, before the last go-round sinks totally below the level of recall.  Perhaps I will finally build up enough courage to join a French conversation group.  Don't bank on it.

Add some new cross-training workouts.   From next week (Tuesday and Thursdays) I will be doing a 'Muscle Blaster' and 'Abs Express' group program at the Rice University Rec Center.  So if I can stick with it at least for January and February (March will be a washout), that ought to be a good start.  

Find my long lost abs. I've written about these elusive muscles a couple of times before.  It is a matter of uncovering them - I know.  So we're really talking about several sub-goals including losing some weight and significantly reducing my bodyfat percentage from the current 22% or so (in my hands the fat calipers tend to give erratic readings?) down to about 12%.  Probably too ambitious a goal but it is now or never.  

And finally...

Chew my food.  One of the most interesting 'diet-related' snippets of information I came across in 2010 was a reference to significantly lower food intake by persons who chewed on a mouth-full of food for 9 seconds instead of the usual 2 seconds.  I'm definitely guilty of the latter so I will print out this list to constantly remind me to slow down and give those molars the work they were designed for.  I paid the endodontist dearly for most of them anyway (enjoy your Maserati Dr. Zamani) so I might as well get my money's worth!


Best wishes to you and yours for 2011!!