About
My name is Tony and I live in Atlanta. I’m a new runner looking for a challenge for 2010. I’m hoping to compete in a race every week of 2010. A complete year of races. During the year, my goals are to get better as a runner; complete a 5k, a 10k, a half-marathon, a marathon, and a trail race; and collect a bunch of t-shirts. 
I like the blog and the writing. Have some concerns about the goal of running a race every weekend. As an experienced runner and athlete I have to say this is a recipe for your body to completely break down. There are only so many 100% efforts in our body and recovery is a huge portion of the running recipe. 100% is an individual component and doesn’t depend on the time you run, so don’t think if you’re not running 16 min 5ks, you’re not going all out. In order for you to reach your goals of becoming a better runner and collecting a bunch of t-shirts, I think you should add a third goal; to stay healthy and consistent. The biggest ingredient in improvement is staying injury free and this is done with smart steady training. I urge you to re-evaluate your race schedule and pick a few target races. This way, you will allow your body sufficient recovery time and manage to stay healthy longer. A quick google search for training programs and maybe even a read of Lidiard’s training principles would help if you really want to get into it!
Enjoy and best of luck!
@runner: Wow! I’m super-excited to know that someone other than my wife reads this.
Hey, seriously, thanks for the thoughts. I’ve also been thinking along those lines. I definitely have some races that are more important than others. I won’t be trying to set a PR every race, but, sometimes, I’m sure those competitive juices will start flowing…
Really, the idea is just to hold myself accountable to sticking to a running routine. If I know I have a race this weekend, I’m less likely to slack in my mid-week training runs. I’ll be running a marathon in the fall and I’m looking at a lot of these races as supplemental training runs that’ll help me keep things fresh. My body definitely comes first, and if races start to take a toll, I’ll look to pare down the schedule.
Again, thanks for the comments. Hope to see you out there!