What's ahead...

I know it's been a while, but kids, running, work, stuff keeps me going. And when I finally do wind down at the end of the night, I settle into my recliner, watch crappy TV and fall asleep.

But it's the first day of a new year, though, and you know how much I love that stuff. So here are my year-end stats:

I ran a total distance of 2,679 miles on 2013. My goal was to run 2,000. ;-)

According to my Garmin stats, I burned more than 188,000 calories. That's not entirely true -- I wasn't putting in my manual treadmill stats correctly for the first three months, so that total doesn't include those calories.

I put in the most miles in December, with 317. I'm particularly proud of that. I am fortunate enough to have two weeks off in December, and I always say that I'm going to stick to my running schedule and possibly even run more, because I have the time. And then I sabotage myself by putting off the running until later and then later never comes because we're busy or there's something more fun to do.

Not this year. I ran early and late, I snuck in runs before family gatherings, I did what I needed to do when I needed to do it!

If there's anything I would have done differently, it would have been to push myself on vacation to run more. I was in Colorado, for goodness' sakes, and I woke up hours before my family every single day. I could have easily driven to one of the two or three running paths near our hotel and gotten in a run.

I am a bit disappointed that I didn't follow through with my goal of running a race a month. I did run quite a few races though:

• Cowtown Half-Marathon, Fort Worth
• The Gusher Half-Marathon, Beaumont
• The Austin 10/20, Austin
• The Seahawks 5K, Port Arthur
• Color Run, Beaumont
• United Way 5K, Port Neches
• Turkey Trot 10K, Beaumont

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The Houston Marathon is nineteen days away. I ran my first 20-miler this past weekend and it went fine. I felt good all through the run, I kept a steady pace, and I wasn't wrecked during or after the run. In the past, I was completely useless after a 20-miler, and walked gingerly around the house for a couple of days after.

I'm excited, scared, nervous. I think I will do better than my 5-hours-plus finish at SA, but how close I'll get to my goal of 4:30 is anyone's guess.