I'm back to San Diego after holidays in New England with my family and I'm feeling happy, healthy and ready for another great year. I’ve hit the ground running and the next month is stacked with exciting endurance industry events.

My last long run before the Sedona Marathon on 2/7 is this weekend at the Diamond Valley Lake Marathon. The course is flat as a pancake so I will focus on a proper warm-up and cool down with race pace in between. My good friend Austin, who raced the Silverman 70.3 the same day I did the Silverman 140.6, will also be running so we’re stoked for another fun race and road trip together.

Next week, Dr. John Martinez at Coastal Sports and Wellness Center will host the January TCSD club meeting and the 2008 Ironman World Champion, Craig Alexander. After attending the interview with Chrissie Wellington in October, it’s going to be great to see "Crowie" and something tells me we’ll be seeing him again 2 days later at this year’s Endurance Sports Awards.

ESA 2008 left to right: Mike Reilly, Toby Guillette (Me), Gale Bernhardt, Jesse Hammond

The morning after the ESAs, I’ve volunteered to help with the Xterra Mission Gorge 15K. I ran the course on Sunday and for a 15K, this course is legit. There are always pros in town for the ESAs so it will be cool to see who shows up to throw down.

Then I’m off to run the Sedona Marathon with my brother. He’s super-fit right now so I’m hoping I can hang with him for the 26.2. I also got a call from the young ultra running prodigy, Nick Hollon, letting me know he’ll be toeing the line as well. But after the 26.2, I’ll still be thinking about Jimmy from the MCM community and my x-girlfriend who are both running the Rocky Raccoon 100 in Texas that day.

Then it's right off the plane from Sedona to this year’s Running USA Conference here in San Diego. That weekend, we have a group ride planned to preview the Palomar Mountain climb in Stage 8 of the Tour de California, the weekend before the TdC comes to town for its final stage!

As you can see, the next month is action-packed and I’ll do my best to keep you updated along the way. To better serve you, my daily posts can be found on Twitter @TobyGuillette and/or you can subscribe to my RSS feed for auto-updates when I publish a blog here. Thanks for joining me for another great year of adventure!

Tuesday night my relay team did a training swim sans wetsuit to simulate Sunday morning’s La Jolla 10-mile Relay Swim. It was approximately 62 F in the water as the sun was setting. For all of you cold-weather freaks who consider me a wuss for thinking it was cold out therethat doesn’t faze meit was freezing! I lost sensation in my fingertips during the swim and it took close to a half-hour afterwards to come back. The water temperature has gone up since, so last night was more bearable during the SportsQuest Direct Aquathon with the Triathlon Club of San Diego. The 1,000-meter swim took me 15 minutes and I felt unorganized and rushed. My form was off for the entire swim and I never settled into a groove. This will be different on Sunday, when the swimmers are more spread out. I’m looking forward to that.

Anyhow, my transition to the run went quickly and I was into my 5K run in a minute’s time. The run along the beach to Scripps Pier and back, twice, went well. There were piles of washed up kelp to hurdle along the way and confused-looking beach goers to dodge. I liked the out-and-back format of the run because I got to see how fast some of the other club members are. My 5K took me 21 minutes, which is a solid pace, and I felt good about it. But when I saw some of these guys and ladies blow by me in a sprint, during both laps, I was really impressed--and motivated.

Photo Courtesy of TCSD

I’ve been working on my race schedule for 2008 for the last week, and with the help of our Active Expert Gale Bernhardt, I’ve decided on the schedule below. My main events for the year will be the Vineman Ironman in July and the San Diego 100-mile Trail Run in October. The races in between are still open to debate, but this is my first draft for the time being. What do you think? A little too ambitious? I’m feeling good about it. 2008 will be a big year, but I feel like it all becomes relative along the way, right?