Winter running & past races

Alright: I ran the hobbler gobbler in 46:23 -- a little slower than I wanted -- I wanted to do 7:15 minute miles the whole way but I ended up with 7:27's I started off too fast (with 7's) and then I just got tired, I still beat my last years time by almost five minutes and got 2nd in my age group, 13th over all female. I then did the Chili chase the next week end -- it was a 5k and I finished in 21:29 -- that's 6:55 minutes I was pretty happy with that although my goal was to be under 20, but I couldn't do it, I just get tired and give up, I feel like I do better on my speed work outs than I do on the actual races. Next year I plan on training to run a 5k in 19 minutes -- we are also doing a marathon although we have not decided which one or what training program to use -- we plan on having a meeting about that. Lately I am not training for anything, we have had some very cold weather and running outside constantly has been hard. I've been on the tread mill at least once a week. Last week I did a 6 miler on the tread mill, a 5.3 mile run outside and then a 9 mile run alone on Saturday. It was actually nice to run alone for a change... I didn't have to wait to meed up with anyone, I didn't have to get everyone to agree what time to go and how many miles to go and what rout to run. It was just me and the road, I actually ended up running at a 8:10ish pace which is faster than a normal longer run pace for me, I think it's because usually i'm always having to slow down for others who don't want to go that fast, which is fine, i'm horrible at pacing myself, but this was nice. I'm still suffering from a shin splint a little, but it's not too bad. I plan on starting a yoga class at the first of the year and continue to do it through the marathon -- I think it will help me stay injury free this time around. I'm not afraid of the big runs that I will have to do to train for the race -- in fact I feel better abut doing this run than I did about running the half -- I guess i've already been on a 15 mile run, what's 11.2 more? I want that sticker. Anyway, today I ran 6.75 on the tread mill and felt great, well as great as running on the tread mill can be. tomorrow is core work and hopefully Thursday I will be able to run outside. Running is such a strange thing -- sometimes you feel great and just love it, other times you hate it and never want to run another step again.