It is telling that a White House staffer tweeted, in response to insurance companies' caving to White House demands to cover children's preexisting conditions despite a potential loophole in ObamaCare that might let them get out of it...
..."Kids 1, insurance 0."
So the Democrats think of health care only in terms of winners and losers. In order for patients to win, insurance companies must lose. Gains by one group must always be made at the expense of another group.
But this is not the way it has to be. In a free market, decisions about health care would be made voluntarily -- by mutual trade, to mutual benefit. A child would not get health insurance at the expense of the insurer -- his parents would decide that they valued their child's being insured more than they valued the money it cost them, whereas the insurance company would value the money more than it values the service it is providing to the child's parents. Both parties would be trading something they valued less and getting something they valued more. In that case, the score is a win for both sides. Isn't that the kind of world we want -- not the kind where we cannibalize each other?
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
We're all vicious, therefore we should all pay?
Sandeep Jauhar, a doctor, writes for the New York Times that healthcare "reform" will require people with good habits to subsidize people with bad ones, because if determining the price of an insurance policy by risk is outlawed, then those of us who pursue healthy lifestyles will be paying more so that those who don't can pay less. Dr. Jauhar is right, of course, but he goes on to imply that that's not such a bad thing.
Dr. Jauhar's argument: We all have bad habits that "society," in some form or another, has to pay for. He says, "But then I remind myself that we all engage in socially irresponsible behavior that others pay for. I try to eat right and get enough exercise. But then I also sometimes send when I drive." He doesn't come out and say "who are we to judge?" but he strongly implies it, with his tale of a patient who didn't care for himself very well and then was denied care by a doctor who told him he needed to learn personal responsibility. He doesn't come out and say, "we're all bad, so we should all pay," but that's what he means.
What an abysmal view of human nature -- that we are all flawed, and that rather than try to make ourselves better, we should simply accept that we are flawed and help each other pay for the wrecks our foibles cause.
Ayn Rand offered a very different view of human nature -- in which pride, or moral ambition, is a virtue. Man is fallible, he can make mistakes -- so he isn't automatically perfect in his knowledge or his decisions, but he can strive to be morally perfect. He can, no matter what the situation, apply his reasoning mind, and he can refuse to tolerate moral laziness or weakness in himself.
That is how I want to view man -- as a being capable of finding out what steps he should take to sustain his life, and once he knows what those steps are, he is a being capable of acting on his judgment. Man is not a creature of his fatal flaws, and what flaws he does allow himself impose no obligation on others.
Dr. Jauhar's argument: We all have bad habits that "society," in some form or another, has to pay for. He says, "But then I remind myself that we all engage in socially irresponsible behavior that others pay for. I try to eat right and get enough exercise. But then I also sometimes send when I drive." He doesn't come out and say "who are we to judge?" but he strongly implies it, with his tale of a patient who didn't care for himself very well and then was denied care by a doctor who told him he needed to learn personal responsibility. He doesn't come out and say, "we're all bad, so we should all pay," but that's what he means.
What an abysmal view of human nature -- that we are all flawed, and that rather than try to make ourselves better, we should simply accept that we are flawed and help each other pay for the wrecks our foibles cause.
Ayn Rand offered a very different view of human nature -- in which pride, or moral ambition, is a virtue. Man is fallible, he can make mistakes -- so he isn't automatically perfect in his knowledge or his decisions, but he can strive to be morally perfect. He can, no matter what the situation, apply his reasoning mind, and he can refuse to tolerate moral laziness or weakness in himself.
That is how I want to view man -- as a being capable of finding out what steps he should take to sustain his life, and once he knows what those steps are, he is a being capable of acting on his judgment. Man is not a creature of his fatal flaws, and what flaws he does allow himself impose no obligation on others.
Monday, March 29, 2010
This breaks my heart.
Paul Hsieh posted a letter written to him by a bright sixteen-year-old girl who had been dreaming about a future in medicine, but who is now wondering if she should reconsider her choice, given that ObamaCare will make slaves out of doctors. And she does not want to be a slave. "How can you now lay claim to my hard work and future talents?" she asks. "I now feel that if I choose the medical profession I would become a second class citizen."
She's right, and it breaks my heart. Most of the discussions I've had about health care reform have made me angry -- at people who can't or won't analyze the facts and see the principles that make government intervention in health care an evil idea that can only lead to misery. But this letter makes me sad.
The only thing I could think about while reading it is my fifteen-year-old niece, who, like the author of the letter, is a bright young lady who wants to be a doctor. When she was little, my niece broke her arm at a school playground, badly enough to need traction and surgery. The expert care she received at the hospital inspired her to want to become a doctor just like the ones who had treated her.
I've always encouraged my niece's dreams. But now, I can only do so with a heavy heart. If she continues in her path to become a doctor, she's setting herself up to spend at least as much time dealing with insurance company employees and government bureaucrats as she spends working with patients -- to have to subdue the judgment of her own mind to that of some bureaucrat who doesn't have a medical degree -- to have her pay dictated, not by the best her ability can command, but by some apparatchik who thinks that, because her services are needed, she has to offer them at low cost to all comers.
It breaks my heart to think of my beautiful, carefree niece consigned to that kind of life. It breaks my heart to think of how some of our best and brightest students, instead of looking forward to a life in which their fortunes are limited only by the best their ability can be and in which their minds will be the guide of their work, will decide instead to do something that they don't quite feel as passionate about -- but that won't shackle their minds the way government-regulated medicine will.
We'll never know how many bright young minds like these ObamaCare will crush.
She's right, and it breaks my heart. Most of the discussions I've had about health care reform have made me angry -- at people who can't or won't analyze the facts and see the principles that make government intervention in health care an evil idea that can only lead to misery. But this letter makes me sad.
The only thing I could think about while reading it is my fifteen-year-old niece, who, like the author of the letter, is a bright young lady who wants to be a doctor. When she was little, my niece broke her arm at a school playground, badly enough to need traction and surgery. The expert care she received at the hospital inspired her to want to become a doctor just like the ones who had treated her.
I've always encouraged my niece's dreams. But now, I can only do so with a heavy heart. If she continues in her path to become a doctor, she's setting herself up to spend at least as much time dealing with insurance company employees and government bureaucrats as she spends working with patients -- to have to subdue the judgment of her own mind to that of some bureaucrat who doesn't have a medical degree -- to have her pay dictated, not by the best her ability can command, but by some apparatchik who thinks that, because her services are needed, she has to offer them at low cost to all comers.
It breaks my heart to think of my beautiful, carefree niece consigned to that kind of life. It breaks my heart to think of how some of our best and brightest students, instead of looking forward to a life in which their fortunes are limited only by the best their ability can be and in which their minds will be the guide of their work, will decide instead to do something that they don't quite feel as passionate about -- but that won't shackle their minds the way government-regulated medicine will.
We'll never know how many bright young minds like these ObamaCare will crush.
Friday, March 26, 2010
Back in the fight
I've posted nothing since Washington committed its crime on Sunday night. I have to admit, it was demoralizing.
But, I have a liberal commenter who likes to think he's a smartass. See the comments here, where he (I think it's a he) began with, "Eat your heart out about the health care bill passage, sweetie."
No. No, I won't. I'll join the many others who continue to fight the good fight, because it's my life and the lives of those I love at stake -- the fruits of my productive ability that the Democrats want to take to pay for other people's care, the advanced health care that won't be available to any but the politically connected by the time I need it, the bureaucratic misery that awaits my beloved niece if she follows her dream of becoming a neurologist.
So, Rye Parrish, know that your little dig has actually reinvigorated me to fight this evil legislation. Here's what will be my biggest contribution: an article for The Objective Standard showing why a free market would make better quality health care available -- and make it more available, because it will be cheaper.
But, I have a liberal commenter who likes to think he's a smartass. See the comments here, where he (I think it's a he) began with, "Eat your heart out about the health care bill passage, sweetie."
No. No, I won't. I'll join the many others who continue to fight the good fight, because it's my life and the lives of those I love at stake -- the fruits of my productive ability that the Democrats want to take to pay for other people's care, the advanced health care that won't be available to any but the politically connected by the time I need it, the bureaucratic misery that awaits my beloved niece if she follows her dream of becoming a neurologist.
So, Rye Parrish, know that your little dig has actually reinvigorated me to fight this evil legislation. Here's what will be my biggest contribution: an article for The Objective Standard showing why a free market would make better quality health care available -- and make it more available, because it will be cheaper.
Thursday, March 18, 2010
LTE in the NYT!
For a while I had given up on writing letters to the editor of the New York Times -- it seemed like they only published letters from loony leftists. But, given that we are in a healthcare endgame, I had to try again -- and my letter appears in today's paper.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/18/opinion/l18health.html
I'm glad I took the time out to write it. Notice that it appears alongside two letters from leftists who want ObamaCare passed, and one from the president of the AMA, who doesn't understand the trouble government intervention has gotten doctors into or how to get out of it. I'm glad there's a free-market voice on the page to counter them!
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/
I'm glad I took the time out to write it. Notice that it appears alongside two letters from leftists who want ObamaCare passed, and one from the president of the AMA, who doesn't understand the trouble government intervention has gotten doctors into or how to get out of it. I'm glad there's a free-market voice on the page to counter them!
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Emotionalism doesn't belong in the health care debate
Advocates of healthcare "reform" love to trot out stories like President Obama's of a self-employed cleaning lady who dropped her insurance, then got leukemia. One is supposed to feel sorry for her, and then because one feels sorry for her, swallow ObamaCare, with its massive increase in government controls and taxes, whole. Obama asserts that "every argument has been made," and now it's time to show the real impact of not following his plan.
Well, yes, an awful lot of arguments have been made -- but the good ones haven't been answered. How can forcing insurers to cover anybody and everybody while limiting the price they can charge, do anything but steal from the young and healthy to pay for the old and sick? Why, when insurance mandates have failed spectacularly in Massachusetts, are they going to do better multiplied by fifty? How can one justify violating individual rights on an even grander scale than they already are?
Obama is trying to bypass logic and facts -- because they aren't on his side -- and go straight for feelings. Isn't it awful to see a hard-working human being who, because she could no longer afford insurance, now has a life-threatening condition and no way to pay for her treatment?
Yes. Yes, it is, and I do feel sorry for Natoma Canfield, the woman of the president's example. But it does not follow from that emotion that we must place health care under government control.
Emotions, as I'm learning in my OAC readings, are not tools of cognition. You can't just go from "I feel X" to "we need to do Y." You have to unravel all of the ideas that got you to that emotional reaction, because some of them may be true and some may be false -- and you have to act on your best rational assessment of the facts, not on that initial emotion.
Your average American, indoctrinated by altruism as we are, hearing about Natoma Canfield probably feels sorry for her out of a sense of benevolence (she's another human being; even strangers are of potential value to us because of that) and guilt (we are supposed to help others; I should do my part and help her), and Barack Obama can play on that unearned guilt to buy the federal government an unprecedented control over the U.S. economy.
I feel sorry for her out of benevolence to other human beings -- and because the very reason a self-employed person like her can't afford insurance coverage for catastrophic conditions like cancer is because government controls have priced her out of the market. My emotion of feeling sorry for Natoma Canfield will not lead me to support ObamaCare, not one whit -- because I understand that there are principles involved, and that the facts are what they are regardless of what I feel. In fact, my feeling sorry for her is a reminder to me of the fact that government intervention caused her desperate situation, and that we must fight against government intervention to prevent more cases like hers.
Don't let the president bamboozle you with sad stories. It's fine to feel sad for people like Natoma Canfield -- but then think about why she is in the situation she's in, and you'll come to a far different conclusion than Obama. Feel what you feel -- but act on the facts.
Well, yes, an awful lot of arguments have been made -- but the good ones haven't been answered. How can forcing insurers to cover anybody and everybody while limiting the price they can charge, do anything but steal from the young and healthy to pay for the old and sick? Why, when insurance mandates have failed spectacularly in Massachusetts, are they going to do better multiplied by fifty? How can one justify violating individual rights on an even grander scale than they already are?
Obama is trying to bypass logic and facts -- because they aren't on his side -- and go straight for feelings. Isn't it awful to see a hard-working human being who, because she could no longer afford insurance, now has a life-threatening condition and no way to pay for her treatment?
Yes. Yes, it is, and I do feel sorry for Natoma Canfield, the woman of the president's example. But it does not follow from that emotion that we must place health care under government control.
Emotions, as I'm learning in my OAC readings, are not tools of cognition. You can't just go from "I feel X" to "we need to do Y." You have to unravel all of the ideas that got you to that emotional reaction, because some of them may be true and some may be false -- and you have to act on your best rational assessment of the facts, not on that initial emotion.
Your average American, indoctrinated by altruism as we are, hearing about Natoma Canfield probably feels sorry for her out of a sense of benevolence (she's another human being; even strangers are of potential value to us because of that) and guilt (we are supposed to help others; I should do my part and help her), and Barack Obama can play on that unearned guilt to buy the federal government an unprecedented control over the U.S. economy.
I feel sorry for her out of benevolence to other human beings -- and because the very reason a self-employed person like her can't afford insurance coverage for catastrophic conditions like cancer is because government controls have priced her out of the market. My emotion of feeling sorry for Natoma Canfield will not lead me to support ObamaCare, not one whit -- because I understand that there are principles involved, and that the facts are what they are regardless of what I feel. In fact, my feeling sorry for her is a reminder to me of the fact that government intervention caused her desperate situation, and that we must fight against government intervention to prevent more cases like hers.
Don't let the president bamboozle you with sad stories. It's fine to feel sad for people like Natoma Canfield -- but then think about why she is in the situation she's in, and you'll come to a far different conclusion than Obama. Feel what you feel -- but act on the facts.
Monday, March 15, 2010
"Too much" care
The AP reports that Americans, including the President himself, may be getting "too much" health care -- as in tests deemed unnecessary:
Well, why "at a huge financial cost to society"? That's only because the government pays for so much health care. If I'm not paying for it, I don't give a rap whether my neighbor wants a colonoscopy at age 45 for his peace of mind. It's only when the government gets involved that we start turning a suspicious eye on each other to see if we can castigate others for their "frivolous" biopsies or "unnecessary" screenings.
In a free market, most of us wouldn't buy insurance that covers every test under the sun -- because it wouldn't make financial sense to do so. And if I pay for my tests out of pocket, you can be damn sure I'm going to ask: Do I need it? Are there risks associated with my getting the test? What are the risks if I don't have it? And then I, taking the expert medical advice of my doctor as well as my financial situation and the other things I want and need in life into account, will decide whether or not to have that test. I, and I alone, would decide, in the context of my life, whether that test was necessary or not, and nobody else would have any business enforcing their view on me.
Do you want third parties -- whether the government or private insurers -- telling you that the care you want is "too much"? Only a free market in health care will let you make the final choice.
[T]he colon exam exposed [Obama] to radiation "while likely providing no benefit to his care," [cardiologist and healthcare policy analyst Dr. Rita Redberg] wrote in an editorial in the medical journal. Obama's experience "is multiplied many times over" at a huge financial cost to society, and to patients exposed to potential harms but no benefits.
Well, why "at a huge financial cost to society"? That's only because the government pays for so much health care. If I'm not paying for it, I don't give a rap whether my neighbor wants a colonoscopy at age 45 for his peace of mind. It's only when the government gets involved that we start turning a suspicious eye on each other to see if we can castigate others for their "frivolous" biopsies or "unnecessary" screenings.
In a free market, most of us wouldn't buy insurance that covers every test under the sun -- because it wouldn't make financial sense to do so. And if I pay for my tests out of pocket, you can be damn sure I'm going to ask: Do I need it? Are there risks associated with my getting the test? What are the risks if I don't have it? And then I, taking the expert medical advice of my doctor as well as my financial situation and the other things I want and need in life into account, will decide whether or not to have that test. I, and I alone, would decide, in the context of my life, whether that test was necessary or not, and nobody else would have any business enforcing their view on me.
Do you want third parties -- whether the government or private insurers -- telling you that the care you want is "too much"? Only a free market in health care will let you make the final choice.
To Carolyn Maloney
I live in NYC, so my representative is a loony liberal, unsurprisingly. (Last year, she sent me this awful form letter in response to my letter to her urging her to vote no on the House healthcare bill.)
Nonetheless, we are at another critical point in the push against ObamaCare, and I have to at least try to stop it. I sent her the following:
Representative Maloney:
Your voting record on health care is well known. However, I must urge you to do the right thing the only way I know how.
If you vote for ObamaCare, I will make sure I get to the polls next election to vote against your continued presence in the House of Representatives.
America needs a total dismantling of government intervention in health care, not an increase in the crippling burden of regulations and taxes that we already bear.
Sincerely,
Stella Zawistowski
Write your representative, too! If ObamaCare passes, it will be even more difficult to get it repealed than to prevent it from passing.
Nonetheless, we are at another critical point in the push against ObamaCare, and I have to at least try to stop it. I sent her the following:
Representative Maloney:
Your voting record on health care is well known. However, I must urge you to do the right thing the only way I know how.
If you vote for ObamaCare, I will make sure I get to the polls next election to vote against your continued presence in the House of Representatives.
America needs a total dismantling of government intervention in health care, not an increase in the crippling burden of regulations and taxes that we already bear.
Sincerely,
Stella Zawistowski
Write your representative, too! If ObamaCare passes, it will be even more difficult to get it repealed than to prevent it from passing.
Really, NYC?
Really? You have nothing better to do than try to shut down clubs that secretly allow smoking?
How about, instead, with all the tax dollars you've stolen from me and other New Yorkers, you spend some time thinking about how to reduce your intrusion into our lives, not increase it?
How about, instead, with all the tax dollars you've stolen from me and other New Yorkers, you spend some time thinking about how to reduce your intrusion into our lives, not increase it?
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Funny how that works, Mr. President...
Obama is "tired of talking about" health care.
Well, boo hoo hoo, Mr. President. That is the whining of a petulant child. If he had been able to answer the many rational objections to massively increasing government intervention in health care, and found his well-reasoned rebuttals falling on deaf ears, then he would be justified in saying that he's sick of the discussion. But that is emphatically not the case. Obama has failed to answer objections with anything more than a lame "because it's right," which means "because I feel it's right," not "because the facts show that it's right." That's because he can't. He can't use logic and facts to support what he wants because logic and the facts support a completely opposite conclusion: that what we need in health care is a fully free market.
So, Obama has no right to demand an end to the debate and the execution of his whims just because he's tired of talking about health care. Guess what, Mr. President? I'm tired of talking about it, too. I'm tired of having to argue, over and over again, that health care is not a right -- that the high cost of so many healthcare goods and services is because of, not in spite of, government regulation -- that neither insurers nor doctors nor patients should be enslaved by the government in the name of universal health care.
I'm tired of talking about it, but I will continue to do so, because I value my life and I don't want the government messing with my health care even more than it already has.
You, Mr. President, do not have the luxury of throwing a tantrum and saying that we Americans need to stop talking about health care and just do what you want. If you'd like to stop talking about it, please do shut your pie hole, learn some basic laws of economics, and start defending individual rights the way you're supposed to -- by dropping all talk of healthcare "reform" via government controls, and talking about a free market instead.
Well, boo hoo hoo, Mr. President. That is the whining of a petulant child. If he had been able to answer the many rational objections to massively increasing government intervention in health care, and found his well-reasoned rebuttals falling on deaf ears, then he would be justified in saying that he's sick of the discussion. But that is emphatically not the case. Obama has failed to answer objections with anything more than a lame "because it's right," which means "because I feel it's right," not "because the facts show that it's right." That's because he can't. He can't use logic and facts to support what he wants because logic and the facts support a completely opposite conclusion: that what we need in health care is a fully free market.
So, Obama has no right to demand an end to the debate and the execution of his whims just because he's tired of talking about health care. Guess what, Mr. President? I'm tired of talking about it, too. I'm tired of having to argue, over and over again, that health care is not a right -- that the high cost of so many healthcare goods and services is because of, not in spite of, government regulation -- that neither insurers nor doctors nor patients should be enslaved by the government in the name of universal health care.
I'm tired of talking about it, but I will continue to do so, because I value my life and I don't want the government messing with my health care even more than it already has.
You, Mr. President, do not have the luxury of throwing a tantrum and saying that we Americans need to stop talking about health care and just do what you want. If you'd like to stop talking about it, please do shut your pie hole, learn some basic laws of economics, and start defending individual rights the way you're supposed to -- by dropping all talk of healthcare "reform" via government controls, and talking about a free market instead.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Oh yeah, that's insane, all right.
New York magazine's Grub Street blog reports that state assemblyman Felix Ortiz has proposed a salt ban in restaurants. Not just a restriction, a BAN. On any use of salt in any form in the preparation of food in restaurants! Grub Street quite correctly calls the bill "insane."
Grub Street is reacting so strongly, though, for the wrong reasons. It's true, so much of a meal's flavor derives from its being properly seasoned that a salt ban would turn the state's restaurants into a bland mess of awful -- and that thought sends the columnist (and me) into paroxysms of horror.
But that's not the worst of it. The truly unpalatable problem is that New York's lawmakers think it's perfectly all right to trample on individual rights -- the right to eat as much salt as one damn well pleases, and take the consequences for it. That is what Grub Street ought to be calling "insane."
By the way...it was only a matter of time from when Bloomberg and his talk of "encouraging" "voluntary" salt restrictions in the city until someone in the nanny state tried to make it a law. Until and unless there is widespread opposition to these laws on moral grounds, we are just going to be having a debate on how much salt should be restricted, how much of a tax to put on sodas, and so on and so forth.
Grub Street is reacting so strongly, though, for the wrong reasons. It's true, so much of a meal's flavor derives from its being properly seasoned that a salt ban would turn the state's restaurants into a bland mess of awful -- and that thought sends the columnist (and me) into paroxysms of horror.
But that's not the worst of it. The truly unpalatable problem is that New York's lawmakers think it's perfectly all right to trample on individual rights -- the right to eat as much salt as one damn well pleases, and take the consequences for it. That is what Grub Street ought to be calling "insane."
By the way...it was only a matter of time from when Bloomberg and his talk of "encouraging" "voluntary" salt restrictions in the city until someone in the nanny state tried to make it a law. Until and unless there is widespread opposition to these laws on moral grounds, we are just going to be having a debate on how much salt should be restricted, how much of a tax to put on sodas, and so on and so forth.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
2010 goals: Progress
Now that we're almost a third of the way through the year (!) I'm checking my progress on my health-related goals:
Maintain weight at 135 pounds. Check. I have not been above 137.5 since the start of the year. Continuing to use Lose It! as a check on myself (it automatically cuts your calorie count once you enter a weight above your goal weight, even if it's only by half a pound) has kept me from slipping.
Beat my personal record in the marathon. I've signed up to run Chicago in October, and have put together my training plan for the year. I begin next week with twelve weeks of speed-building, including fartleks, tempo runs, hill training, and intervals. The twelve-week spring training program is followed by 18 weeks in which the focus shifts to building mileage. I'm choosing a slightly more difficult plan than I've followed in my past two marathons, in the hopes that increasing my weekly mileage by about 10% as compared with last year will improve my endurance.
Run a 5K. Did that on Sunday morning. My time was 25:09 -- a little slower than I wanted, but then I had no idea I was going to be running on a course loaded with hills. Note to self: Know thy course! If I'd done a little research ahead of time, I would have known to expect that, and thus not to expect a sub-25-minute time (as well as to do more hill training in the weeks before the race). If I can find one (5Ks are oddly hard to come by in NYC), I'll try running a flatter 5K before the summer is over, so that I can see what my time on a less roller-coaster-like course would be.
Improve core strength. I haven't been perfect on this one. I find it easy to throw in ab work at the end of a treadmill session, when I'm at the gym and there's an ab mat right there. But when I run outside (as I've been much better about doing this winter than in previous years), I almost never do ab work when I get home, usually because I just want to get into the shower and de-stink myself. So I think I need to figure out other ways to get ab work at home into my day, especially since I'll be running outdoors even more now that the weather is finally getting springy.
Go injury-free. Thus far, nothing worse than an annoying plantar wart!
Maintain weight at 135 pounds. Check. I have not been above 137.5 since the start of the year. Continuing to use Lose It! as a check on myself (it automatically cuts your calorie count once you enter a weight above your goal weight, even if it's only by half a pound) has kept me from slipping.
Beat my personal record in the marathon. I've signed up to run Chicago in October, and have put together my training plan for the year. I begin next week with twelve weeks of speed-building, including fartleks, tempo runs, hill training, and intervals. The twelve-week spring training program is followed by 18 weeks in which the focus shifts to building mileage. I'm choosing a slightly more difficult plan than I've followed in my past two marathons, in the hopes that increasing my weekly mileage by about 10% as compared with last year will improve my endurance.
Run a 5K. Did that on Sunday morning. My time was 25:09 -- a little slower than I wanted, but then I had no idea I was going to be running on a course loaded with hills. Note to self: Know thy course! If I'd done a little research ahead of time, I would have known to expect that, and thus not to expect a sub-25-minute time (as well as to do more hill training in the weeks before the race). If I can find one (5Ks are oddly hard to come by in NYC), I'll try running a flatter 5K before the summer is over, so that I can see what my time on a less roller-coaster-like course would be.
Improve core strength. I haven't been perfect on this one. I find it easy to throw in ab work at the end of a treadmill session, when I'm at the gym and there's an ab mat right there. But when I run outside (as I've been much better about doing this winter than in previous years), I almost never do ab work when I get home, usually because I just want to get into the shower and de-stink myself. So I think I need to figure out other ways to get ab work at home into my day, especially since I'll be running outdoors even more now that the weather is finally getting springy.
Go injury-free. Thus far, nothing worse than an annoying plantar wart!
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