New Year, New Optimism

Well, hello again and Happy New Year to all readers!

My, it's parky out isn't it? Mrs HF and I are a tad more sensitive to it at the moment because we've spent the festive period on an Exodus trip touring Vietnam and Cambodia (hence no blogging). We're used to 28-31 degrees C and humidity upwards of 80%. So it was a bit of a shock when I went out this lunchtime for a quick half-hours poddle around the lanes in the sleety rain!

After the diabolical year that was 2010, I'm hoping 2011 will be a lot better, running wise. To that end, I'm going to try and introduce a bit more structure into my training this year.

I've been hugely impressed with Runningbear's spreadsheet, target HR, scientific, precision-running, timetable approach, even if I know that I could only stick to it for about 5 minutes before it all went pear-shaped. 

So my programme will be more yer classic slow, steady Sunday run, dipping into a rotating selection of intervals, hill reps, Kenyan hills, fartlek, doglek and tempo runs during the week. I'm going to go through the Bible, otherwise known as the FRA Fixtures Calendar & Handbook, to try and pick out some races that can act as mini targets through the year.

But first I needed to assess my baseline fitness after having spent three weeks doing nothing more strenuous than a bit of flat cycling and a couple of hours in a kayak. I also had my traditional festive cold which I'm now just getting over.  That was what today's run was about.

Basically I went up the hills from home for 15 minutes, turned round and came home, all the time monitoring the following:

• aches
• niggles
•  degree of raspyness of the breathing
• closeness to the 'bugger this for a game of soldiers' mind meltdown
• level of agreement/disagreement with the statement: 'I'm getting to old for all this nonsense'
• degree of curiosity about  'How fast can I run if I train properly and consistently?'
• scale of enjoyment about defying the weather
• my personal coefficient of belonging (0= outsider, 1=committed) to the fellowship of runners

 - not stuff that can be spreadsheeted (?spreadshit) very easily!  My conclusions are: my fitness is rubbish, but miles better than this time last year, my cold's got a way to run, I feel younger for having been out than not, sod the weather, and, though I tend to do my own thing, I like being part of the running fraternity.

Let's hope this optimism lasts.

Smileyrating for this run 5/10. Not great. Not total cr*p.