No races so far in 2009, but that's just fine...

As the title to this entry indicates, I haven't run in any races so far this year. The last one I did was the 15th Annual Race Against Time 5K in Wilmington (New Castle County), Delaware in late December of 2008. I'm definitely fine with having not run a race in about a half-a-month since then, 'cause it's a New Year's resolution of mine to cut back from the 100+ races I ran last year.

This New Year has been going nicely so far, and there has been enough going on to take my mind off of the urge to do races. For one thing, I started back at the Homewood Center where I work, last Monday (January 5, 2009), and that has been going nicely for the most part. Been hanging out a lot with friends these days too it seems like. Still haven't gotten around to working on my books (or slideshows of my endeavors to run in running events in all of Maryland's counties in 2007 and 2008), but hopefully that'll come in decent time.

My stomach started bothering me again this past weekend around the time of the Baltimore Ravens and Tennessee Titans playoff game (yea Ravens :), and I think it was 'cause I ate quite a bit beforehand. Then, yesterday (Monday) it started to bother me a lot during work. Fortunately, it has been feeling better today for the most part and it feels good to have an appetite. Though, now my throat hurts and my head's been hurting a little bit. It can be much worse, and I think if anything I might have caught a bit of a fever/flu thing going around. Up to this point, my running and workouts have been solid for the most part, so I think I'll be fine taking today and possibly tomorrow and Thursday off. Besides tomorrow it's supposed to be cold (at least for me) with high's probably not even going over 30 degrees. On Thursday, a couple of my roommates are playing in a concert (they are in a face-rockin' band called No Picnic), so with that, work, and post-work volleyball with some of my co-workers, it may be hard to fit a run in (granted I'm feeling better by Thursday).

Hopefully I'll be feeling better by this weekend to do my first planned race of the year: The one-mile indoor track race at the Potomac Valley Track Club's (http://www.pvtc.org) all-comers' indoor track & field meet at the Thomas Jefferson Community Center in Arlington (Arlington County), Virginia. I ran there last year in early February and I liked how efficiently the meet was run within several hours. After the one-mile race, I hope to do the 800-meter as well as the 3,000 meter race towards the end of the meet. I may even try to run in the 500 meter race, which is a race I have never done and will probably be more of a sprint for me. I think my best 500-meter time is about 1:17 en route to my current 2:05 personal best time in the 800-meter relay as a 800 split for our four-person relay team (we each ran 800 meters to compositely cover 3,200 meters, hence the event was called the 3,200 meter relay) in high school (this was around May of 2002 at the 2A West Regional Championships at Middletown High School in Middletown (Frederick County), Maryland. We took fourth in this event and qualified for the Maryland State Outdoor Track & Field Championships at U.M.B.C. (University of Maryland Baltimore County) Well, I guess that was outdoor track, so probably my best indoor track time for the 500 meter may be around 1:19 thereabouts since my best 800 meter time indoors is 2:10 from the February of 2003 when I ran the 800 meters at the Mason-Dixon Conference Indoor Track & Field Championships at Christopher Newport University in Newport News, VA. This was when I was a freshman at Salisbury University and I ran on their track & field team. I think I had gone through the first half of that race in about 1:02, so I can extrapolate that my 500-meter split in that 800-meter race was about 1:19...
Anyway, enough about the technical stuff.

I've been pretty busy today. After work, I went through quite a few different steps to register for teaching certificate courses again at Howard Community College (H.C.C.) in Columbia (Howard County), Maryland. I had been taking courses there before when I was living in Columbia, but then when I moved to Baltimore County, MD last April, I started enrolling for courses at C.C.B.C. (Community College of Baltimore County). However, it looked like the criteria I needed to get my certificate was better for me at H.C.C. so I pretty much plan on taking at least a course on assessing students and a reading course this coming Spring semester (which should start around the end of January/early February).

I gotta get rolling. Just figure I'd catch you all up on here while I had a few spare moments. God-willing, I'll be feeling better by this weekend so I can run at the track meet. Thank you all for stopping by!