My first race of the year - Christchurch 12k, 53min21sec - under my planned 4min30pace. Evenly paced 26:43 out, 26:38 back on a pleasantly undulating course through Claremont, Dalkeith and Nedlands.

This came on the back of a quiet training week, due to the signs of a viral infection and the aches of increasing my mileage in the first 2 weeks of Jan to 60+ kms each, as well as the intensity with some speed and hill work.

Sat night was a Bucks Party, relatively well behaved I had about 6 stubbies ( mild hangover) - so all in all I'm pretty happy with the performance.

I'd like to think over the next 4 months I can gradually reduce my 10k time each race, heading towards the 40min mark, although probably a bit hopeful to get under it. Then I'll concentrate on endurance, sub 1hr40 half, then sub 3:30 marathon in July. Finally City to Surf in August in under 50min for 12k.

My long term (over years) goal is sub3hour marathon, a standard I feel would qualify me as a good runner. After that... well lets just see how things go for now.

Not sure how often I'll be posting, or what information.