I’m the kind of person who relishes new notebooks and months that start on Mondays — I like fresh starts and beginning at the beginning. So although this blog is coming into my running life in medias res after 64 races, its arrival does coincide with a beginning: the beginning of the off-season.

After a 2013 which saw me run upwards of 30 races including eight weekends in a row with a race of at least 10 miles, this fall and three marathons in four weeks (also part of that eight week streak), I’m taking some time off from racing. My wallet is ready for the break, I’m ready to not have to fight a logistical battle every week to get myself to packet pickup and the start line, and my body is ready to recover. Also, I’ve never really trained specifically for a race; I just run when I feel like running and I run however much I feel like running. The focus of this offseason will be on actually training and preparing adequately for races. I’m physically strong and gritty so I’ve experienced a lot of success recently in races, including a PR by about 12 minutes in my final marathon of the three marathons in four weekends sequence I ran this fall and a PR in the half marathon I ran in the middle of that sequence! But I want to do even better. That means racing less (even though I love it) and training intelligently.

I’m targeting a 50k in February, so this is week one of a 12-week training plan I’ve developed for myself, yet another beginning.

Looking ahead at what I hope to write in this blog, I’d like to cover the following:

-Gear I Use (teaser: I have two new pairs of shoes I’ve never had before)
-Stuff I Like (distinct from Gear I Use)
-Race Recaps (later on…)
-Stories from My Life
-My Routine
-Gear Reviews

Sound good? I think it’s a start.