Looking Forward to '24 with My Running, Walking and Swimming

I hope you are enjoying your New Years Eve today...of course, there are parts of the world right now, as I'm writing this late in the afternoon in Florida, where it's already 2024.  Yesterday I mentioned that in this article I'd discuss some ideas I had about running, walking and swimming for the upcoming year...probably a better topic, although a bit self-indulgent, than politics or war.  Of course, whatever I do (or don't do) in this regard depends on my life circumstances as they arise, chief among them the state of my personal health.  So with the caveat that all is otherwise going well, let's take a gander at some prospective goals.  In 2023, although in mid-year I suffered some temporary back pain and then came down with a mild case of Covid, for the most part I enjoyed a pretty successful year in running for a man in his late sixties two years removed from open heart surgery.  In '24 I'd like to keep the momentum going while dishing in a little more walking and making swimming a regular routine.  I'm already signed up to run a half-marathon on January 15th...it's the Mary Andrews Florida Track Club race I ran a year ago, held in Hawthorne.  FTC, of which I'm a subscribing member, has a full calendar of events including their February Micanopy Ten-Miler race...I plan to run it, too.  Other than participating alternately as runner, walker and volunteer at my local Gainesville weekly Depot Parkrun 5K, I'd like to run more half-marathon races and even try my hand at finishing a 26.2-mile full marathon.  The thought has crossed my mind, as of yet unrealized, of me getting on a plane and flying out to another American city to run such a weekend race and then flying on back in time for work on Monday...I think this is feasible and might be a great adventure.  I plan to continue going to my gym, Gainesville Health and Fitness, to train both on the treadmill with running and walking and in their lap pool as I work through the year to integrate swimming into my permanent routine.  I'm not necessarily a competitive person in sports in that I feel the need to "beat" others, but rather participate in events as a kind of publicly acknowledged accountability statement of my efforts.  In that regard, I'm not sure how I could ever swim in open public events, which for the sport are exceedingly rare.  Oh well, I'll do what I can do, and enjoy the process.  In 2023 I did begin to seriously use the Jeff Galloway (he is a renowned marathon runner) method of running long distances by taking short walking breaks between stretches of running and then repeating the cycle.  The results were very good finishing times for myself and I plan to continue with it next year, although in a crowded, big city race, doing this continual slowing-down and speeding-up could cause some disruption among the rest of the runners around me.  Oh well, I'll cross that bridge when I get to it...