Boldly running where I've never gone before

From Strauchius at http://atavachron.wikidot.com/calendars:klingon-calendar:

“The Klingon day “jaj” lasts 1.29 Earth days, or 30 hours, 57 minutes and 36 seconds.
A Klingon year “DIS” lasts 440.125 Klingon days, or 567.76 Earth days.”

I cannot imagine a 30 hour day!  Geesh.  My jobs would surely have me working even longer.  But maybe with 30 hours in a day, somewhere I might find a marathon with a long-enough time limit that I could finish it even if I walked.   LOL   However there will be no marathon for me this year on any calendar, Terran or Klingon.  I’m not even going to consider it.  I am calling 2015 my “year to get stuff out of the way” lifewise and “back to basics” athleticwise, neither of which includes running 26.2 miles.

Lifewise, the first thing to jettison out the hatch is a boards recertification exam.  Family doctors who want to be board-certified (translation: “any one who wants a decent job”) have to take the medical board exams every 10 years, and I’m doing that in April (which means studying instead of training for events in my spare time).  Since you are required to know all sorts of minutiae about things you may never see in your daily practice, cracking the books like a medical student is what you have to do.  But the good news is: this will be the last board exam I ever take.  When it comes due again in 2025, I will be 69 years old and probably only working part-time someplace that doesn’t care if I’m board-certified or not.

“Back to Basics” in my athletic life means tabling the Ahab-like obsession with distance and working toward greater all-around fitness in an effort to avoid injuries.  I realized last fall (while rehabbing yet another repetitive strain Achilles issue) that I had given up all else in favor of running, and that was surely what contributed to the physical faltering. Since it’s never healthy to be unidimensional, I returned to serious strength training and aerobic conditioning along with eating a higher protein diet.  Oddly enough, my endurance didn’t suffer and I even lost some weight in the process.  So the new year will include shorter races but more biking, lifting, aerobics and the dreaded stretching after each workout.  I will see where that takes me before I try again to slay the white whale labeled 26.2.

2015’s preliminary plans include the following as of this writing:

January  —  Super Run 5k (in San Diego during a board review conference I am attending)
February  —  Puppy Love Virtual 5k (a fundraiser for animals)
March  —  Penguin in the Park 5k (another chance to hobnob with John the Penguin Bingham)
April  —  MORE Fitness Women’s Half Marathon (in New York City to celebrate completing the board exam)
May  —  Soldier Field 10 Miler (this year’s “race with the cousins” in Chicago)
June  —  at least one 5 or 10k somewhere with my running club and maybe more
Fall/winter  —  possibly a multi-state outing in the fall with the gang from MainlyMarathons.com but definitely a December half on the gulf coast within driving distance of New Orleans (tentatively The Holiday Half Marathon in Point Clear, Alabama)

I will post reports and most likely photos from all of them as each one occurs, and will seriously try not to let months go by before that happens.  I’m really a pretty rotten blogger when it comes to consistency but I do try.

I also signed on with the Moon Joggers again this year and have thus earned my first bib and medal already without even having put foot to pavement yet (although I have done many many treadmill miles).

So that’s it for now.  I’ll holler back later with a report on the San Diego 5k.

In the meantime as they say on Qo’noS:  “qet pagh Hegh” (run or die)!.

Photo Credits:
Klingon Emblem – http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Klingon_Empire?file=Klingon_Empire_logo.png
Moby Dick – From http://wallpapersinhq.com/images/big/moby_dick-195639.jpg
Moon Jogger stuff – Me