Yes, the midpoint of the year has come and gone and I didn’t review my goals, my aspirations.  To be totally honest, the only public aspiration I have is to run a race every month this year.  The original goal – announced in a guest post at Motherese –  was to do so for every month but January and February.  Then, I ran a 5K in February.  I modified my aspiration to run 12 races this year.

Okay, so you are thinking, what’s the big deal?  Not to blow my own horn, but all good musicians do so…  It is a big deal.  My body is getting little rest from constant training.  You may ask what training.  These are just races.  To date the six races this year – in chronological order – have been a 5K, two half marathons (that is 13.1 miles each – and don’t think that .1 isn’t important!), a ten miler that was all hills (and included seeing people getting IVs put in on the side of the road), a 20K (that is 12.43 miles) and another 5K.

So at the midpoint of the year, I have run six races.  The six races have totaled 54.83 miles of race routes in the last six months.  More importantly, I have run, including the races, 643 miles in the first six months of the year.  I may break 1000 miles this year – a goal I have often set for myself and never achieved.

The benefits of this training are that my body is looking pretty good.  I am not a skin and bones person by any means but I have dropped four pants sizes since I started running in September of 2007.  I have dropped bra sizes from a 42D to a 38C.  I have more muscle in my body composition than I have had in the past.  Singing – actually anything that involves breathing – comes easier, even with allergies and asthma.  My abdomen is actually developing some definition – nope, no 6-pack abs but some definition.

If you are interested in following my training, I post it all at dailymile.com (my profile).  I also cross post those workouts to Twitter (find me here) and Facebook.

And, just so you all know, I have a page on my blog that lists the races I am running once I pick one.