Christmas is over, with some indulgences regretted, but I have already decided on my first New Year's resolution for 2016. I would like to markedly improve on my half-marathon time from 2015 by at least 10-15 minutes. It's going to be a lot of hard work and, to be honest, I am not looking forward to the additional strength training, hill repeats, and speed work but it's all about outlining my short and long term goals, finding and sticking to an appropriate training schedule, and improving and maintaining a healthy nutrition plan.

Maybe in 2017, I will then shoot for my first marathon. Running a marathon is definitely a future goal of mine and I have even entertained doing an ultra distance one day but it's one goal at a time. It's all down to reading Christopher McDougall's Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen and Scott Jurek's Eat and Run: My Unlikely Journey to Ultramarathon Greatness, which are a couple of must-read books for any runner.

Eat and Run: My Unlikely Journey to Ultramarathon Greatness

Another fun thing I enjoy at the start of another running year is the thought of buying new running shoes. It's a great time to buy with all of the end of year sales so I will be making a trip to town shortly to drop by one of the running stores and start laying the groundwork for my next half-marathon in 2016.

Good luck to you all in achieving your running goals for 2016!