2010 - New Year & New Goals

It has been a little while since my last post...probably the longest I've gone without blogging since I started back in 2003. Breaks are good on many levels.

Overall, our holidays were pretty good...time well spent together. However, it did start a little rocky for me as I was sick for the first week. Nauseous for two days straight then some major pains deep inside my back and lack of energy for 4 days after that. I am speculating it was from my H1N1 shot I got on Christmas Eve...tests next week will hopefully confirm it.

I didn't do much training over the break as a result of being sick. Even if I physically capable, mentally I wasn't ready. I needed to eat and drinks copious amounts of alcohol, stay up late, get up hung-over and feeling like shite a couple of times to remind myself of why I don't prescribe to that life-style. I over-indulged myself and severely enjoyed every minute of it!

I don't make New Years Resolutions but rather, set goals for the coming year. My - Our biggest goal for 2010 is organizing a trip to back to Europe. We are still deciding on whether we want to revisit Greece (which we absolutely love) or hit up a few new countries. Right now we are leaning towards the later with a return to Greece on our 10 year wedding anniversary. No dates have been set but it looks like it may be in the later part of August, early September.

In terms of racing, I would really like to run a sub 40 minute 10km. I missed the mark by 3 seconds 3 years ago so I am determined to cross this one off my list this year. As a stepping-stone towards this goal I am laying down a solid foundation of running earlier on in the season. January is 31 Days of Running. Everyday I am running at least 30 minutes. I have broken out each week into a different theme/focus. This week it is all about running cadence.

I have read several articles that say that a 90 cadence (per foot, per minute) is optimal. I haven't really bought into this idea as 90 being the number to shoot for...mainly because I don't think it is efficient for tall runners. Recently I came across a paper in which the author shared my view saying that cadence is about 5-10 less for people 6'3" and taller. Still though, where do these numbers come from? Where is the research to support it?

Anyways, I have been playing around with my running cadence. When I first started out on January first I was around 78 - 79 per foot per minute at an aerobic effort. That felt natural to me. It took some effort to hit 90 per foot and it felt totally felt unnatural and completely inefficient.

To date, I am at 81 - 83 comfortably now although towards the later stages of a longer run, I fall back to 78 - 79. I am not sure if I'll make it to 90 or if it will be natural/efficient for me to do so (I'm 6'2"), but already it feels better to be in the low 80's. Next weeks focus will be ABC's of running.

Happy Tuesday my friends!