Update & Goals for 2009

It's been awhile since I've last posted, but I thought I'd just give everyone a quick update and list my goals for the upcoming 2009 Race Season. I can't believe Christmas is right around the corner and the New Year is quickly approaching. Since B2B I have absolutely done no training whatsoever. I have to say it's finally started to bother me about 2 weeks ago. I tried to jump back into light training 2 weeks after B2B, but ended up with a strained left adductor muscle, which has sidelined any training that I was hoping to do. I should be good to go in the next few weeks to start running again though, which is good to report. Since I haven't been able to train I have at least started weight training so I could at least keep the holiday weight gain off. Besides the weight training I have also been doing yoga up to two times a week and regularly stretching out for about 20-30 minutes about once or twice day. One of my biggest limiters last year was not being loose and lead to a few annoying injuries such as my tight IT band rubbing on my knee at the beginning of the year and then my Achilles Tendinitis from having tight hamstrings. I'm hoping that I can continue to do yoga during the 2009 season and I'm happy to report that I can already feel the results from doing yoga.

As you may or may not have noticed I have listed my tentative race schedule on the right side of my blog page. Here are a few goals I have for the 2009 Race Season below.

Main Goal - Qualify for the Foster Grant 70.3 World Championships
(Clearwater, FL) Nov. 14, 2009
After having done 2 halfs and a full last year I decided to concentrate on the 70.3 distance in hopes of qualifying for the 70.3 Championship race. Hence why I have signed up for (2) qualifying half races, which are the Amica Ironman 70.3 RI (July 12, 2009) and Timberman (August 23, 2009).

Secondary Goal - Qualify for the Boston Marathon for 2010.
I would have liked to have done an early season marathon in 2009, but I don't think it will be in the cards for me. I hate training outside in the cold weather and there was no way I would make myself suffer in the cold to try and train for a February or March marathon. Instead, I'm hoping that I can do an end of the season marathon to qualify for the Boston Marathon in 2010. For those of you that don't know, I'm superstitious about odd and even numbers. (I like even race numbers.) Hence, why I'd like to run a Boston qualifier in 2009 and then run Boston in an even year. For whatever reason, I'd like to think that if I have an even number I'll have a better race. Case and point, B2B where I had the most unlucky number 313! We all know what happened there.

These are my goals for now and I'm starting to get psyched about getting back into a normal training regimen again by the middle of January.