The start of a New Year

This year has been one of the best running years I have enjoyed. My mileage is getting to a respectable point. It looks as though I will be able to complete the upcoming half-marathon in February with a good time. I did not end the year with a weight I am happy with, but I am lower then I was at this time last year. I hit many of the goals as far as times for races. Under a 10 min mile for the 5K, pretty close for the 10K. Good time at the Turkey this year. All in all a good year running.

Other things have been good as well. Getting the girls in college and through their first semester was really big. They both survived, they both like their schools and the roomates were good.

Work was a challenge, this is one area where I have a great deal of room for improvement. We had a tough year but it looks like 07 will be good. For me personally, I have lost something at work that I will work to regain.

Being empty nesters has proven to be great! I really enjoy spending time with Linda and I think we will find things that we can start to do together that will be great.

As far as resolutions, I only have one: I am going to strive to being so judgemenatal - in our mens group yesterday, our minister said that he was really glad that God is going to be the one judging folks - it takes a lot of preasure off us. We can spend our time loving people - that is my resolution. During my long run yesterday, I spent a great deal of time thinking about the way I judge people and what I realized is that my judgement of folks is my attempt to cover up my own flaws or to make me fell better about my flaws - and I have many. Not sure how I am going to do this, but I am now aware of it and at least can face up to it.

2007 will be a great year...........

The Half Marathon is Set

I thought a picture of the tree might be in order, the only problem is that we have not finished decorating it yet. We were waiting for the girls to finish thier exams and to get home. Should get to that in the next day or so.
I finally signed up for my first half marathon - the date is February 18th and the location is Austin, Texas. Check out the details at the official web site on my front page. Linda and I are both going to Austin and will use the time to visit family and have a great time. I am ready for the race, I ran 11 miles last weekend in 2:06 which was a really good time for me. I had planned on running the race at the end of January and my training is geared to that time frame so I will have to augment for a couple of weeks. My plan is to work on my weight in January and February which should help me with my time. I will also concentrate on speed work a bit more (looking our for injury of course). I am really excited about doing this, I have never made it to this point in my training and am confident that the race will be great. Of course there will be a number of challenges when I get to Austin. I have to avoid the Mexican food on Friday, can's have BBQ either- or at least until after the run and I can't drink either. So with that I am trying to figure out how I will do all that on Sunday night after the race. I am planning on a 2:15 race time which is pretty aggresive. It will depend on the weight loss and the rest of my training.

Other then that things are really going well. Today, both of the girls will officially be finished wiht their first semester of school - hard to beleive. Syracuse let out last week, University of Rochester finished today. We are really excited about having the girls home for the holidays. We also know that they will spend less time with us this year, but we will take what we can get. We could not be prouder of both of them, they really worked hard and it would seem that they will continue to do so.

This Chrismas also brings for Linda and I a renewed focus on what we can to to help others. As I look around, there are so many in need - and what we take granted for, they view as a gift. I suspect this will be the last year for exchanging gifts between ourselves, instead we are going to find ways to get that money we would spend to others who need it more. I would hope that any reading this blog would consider the same. This year, I found a 17 year old boy who had asked for basic items for Christmas, such as shampoo, deoderant, shaving lotion, tooth brush and paste, etc... It is so little to give but it means so much. There is so much we can all do if we just start doing it.

We had our Christmas pageant at church last Sunday with the Sunday school kids, what a great job they all did. When we practiced on Saturday, you would have thought that there was no way they would pull it off. The kids stepped up for thier parents though and they were terrific. It was amazing to look at the faces of the parents and grandparents as thier kids were up there. It reminded me of the many times we watched the girls. Those are memories that can never be taken away. I suppose those are the same memories our parents have of us. It's pretty awesome to think about.

Enough said about that.

No snow yet in Upstate NY, in fact it has been really warm here. We are hoping for some snow soon, but it does not look good. Perhaps after the New Year.

Have a Merry Christmas... Dan