It's been five months since I last posted my monthly summary of my workouts. I think I must have been dispirited by my poor performance at the New York City marathon. January was much better and I think the next two months will be great. I noticed that I also worked out very little during the last winter. I am positive it has to do with the limited daylight and rainy weather.

By the way, I'm back to wearing my knee strap (the one I have is called the Knee Pro-Tec Patellar Tendon Strap). I thought it was back to 100%, but I now think it may never be. I injured it in January of last year. It started hurting after I ran a half-marathon this past Monday. The good news is that it feels pretty fine right now after an 8-mile run. I've been taking anti-inflammatory drugs and that seems to be helping along with the strap.

I didn't feel too solid today. It seems that some days I feel really good and on others pretty crappy. It reminds me of my high school days when I was running cross-country--in some races I'd do awesome and in others I'd suffer like a dog. I think the problem today was a combination of too much food for breakfast and not waiting long enough before running. I have to be more cognizant of timing my runs better. Secondly the tongue of my right shoe kept shifting sideways and was hurting the top of my foot so I had to stop three or four times to adjust it. That's not the sort of thing you want to be doing during the marathon so it's another example of why paying attention to such details is quite important.

Interestingly, all of my recent 8-mile runs (same course) have been within a minute:

1/24/2007: 56:29; 7:03 pace
1/27: 57:28; 7:10 pace
2/1: 57:01: 7:07 pace

I have another 8-mile run on Sunday and I'll try to go under a 7:00 min./mi. pace. Then next Thursday I have a 9-mile run and I'll try to go under 1 hour.

Total: 8.00mi Run (57:01; 7:07 pace; 958 cal.; 149 lb.)