2017

What a year!  I'm not even sure where to start.  The first year of my life where I put in a full year of not just running, but training.  My highest yearly mileage ever, by almost 100 miles.  My 2 longest runs ever (27 and 30 miles).  My 3rd, and strongest, marathon.  Some solid half marathon performances.  Many Track Tuesdays.  Many miles with friends.  I didn't achieve the goal I was working towards all year, but I still achieved so much this year.

It is easy to get sucked into disappointment over my failures this year, but I'm not letting that happen, because I can also see all my triumphs, and they are so much bigger.  Things can't go perfectly all the time, that wouldn't be real, and wouldn't help us appreciate them as much either!  I just completed a strong, almost injury-free year, and I am going into 2018 stronger than ever.  I am ready to crush some marathon training for Pittsburgh in May.  I'm going to keep working on my speed in the hopes of someday PRing in the half marathon.  Maybe it will happen in 2018 and maybe it won't, but that doesn't matter.  What matters is that I keep on believing in myself and working hard to achieve what I want in life.

I just finished the year with roughly 1585 miles, my highest ever!  I'm setting the bar even higher for 2018 with a goal of 1700 miles.  To achieve that, I'm going to try to up my weekly mileage from 30 to 35.  BUT I will always strive to do what's best for me and if it turns out that goal is too lofty and I just can't manage 35 a week, I will scale it back.  Running strong is more important than running far. (However, I feel like 35 miles per week is still pretty low for most marathoners, so I'm not expecting it to be too big of a problem...)

Here's my monthly recaps from Instagram

Christmas Vacation Week 2

I'm sending off 2017 with a bang!  After staying healthy all month, I let myself jump the gun by a week on marathon training, because I felt good and I wanted to take advantage of it!  And see how many more miles I could squeeze into this highest-mileage-ever year!

This week : 

M : run w/Coby 3.1 / 7:51 / 174 ft

T : run 7 / 8:02 / 620 ft

W : circuit training 36:00

R : run 13.2 / 8:35 / 876 ft

F : TRX 20:00

Sa : run w/Jaime 10 / 7:35 / 505 ft

Su : run 7 / 7:23 / 518 ft

total miles : 40.3

Thursday was absolutely frigid ("20 feels like 10") but I had planned for a long run, so a long run is what I dragged myself out the door to do, wearing many layers of fleece and wool.  It was hard to get moving under all those layers so I really didn't even try to pick up the pace, I just let myself slog along.  It's gotta be better for my body to take the longer runs slow anyway, especially after taking it easy for a month.  

On Saturday I really enjoyed finally getting to run with Jaime!  It's hard to work our schedules out since she normally trains while her kids are in school and I'm teaching at that school so... but we finally found a time that worked for both of us, and had a great run.  It's rare that I get to run with a female my speed!  We're hoping to work out some more weekend runs, as I marathon train and she trains for the marathon portion of an Ironman.  

I had more than my 30 miles for the week after Thursday's run, but I was still feeling really good and of course wanted to squeeze a few more miles into the year so out I went today to bring my week up to 40 and my year up to...1584.9... If only I had known, I would have gone that extra 0.1!  But of course it doesn't really matter.   And there are bits and pieces of cool downs that didn't get recorded so of course I ran that 1585+ this year anyway.  

Christmas Vacation Week 1

This week : 

M : AM : run 5 / 8:05 / 282

PM : group 3.7 / 8:25 / 164 ft

T : TRX 38:00

 run w/Ben 4.7 / 7:44 / 279 ft

W : run 7 / 8:57 / 968

R : rest

F : run 9 / 8:08 / 774 ft

Sa : rest

Su : run 4.1 / 8:03 / 217 ft

total miles : 33.5

I was in Lewisburg for a few days this week, I really enjoyed my mountain run on Wednesday and revisiting my old familiar route on Friday.  (I ran my old 6ish mile loop and then kept going for 2 more hills and 3 more miles cause it felt so good!

1500 miles and counting!

At the beginning of the year, I set a 1500 miles goal for myself.  As of Thursday, I have passed this goal and officially run my highest yearly mileage ever.  And I still have two more weeks in the year to keep on running.  I've been using online programs to track my mileage since 2010, and I've only been over 1400 miles twice.  That makes three total years at 1400+ and it's probably not a coincidence that they are the same years in which I ran my 3 marathons! 

This week : 

M : Bristol group 3.7 / 8:13 / 210 ft

T : circuit training 35:00

Abingdon group 5.2 / 7:40 / 200 ft

W : run 10.2 / 7:35 / 535 ft

R : rest

F: run 5.7 / 7:29 / 446 ft

Sa : TRX 30:00

run 4.5 / 8:10 / 413 ft

jog 1.4 / 8:54 / 82 ft

Su : rest

total miles : 30.7

Sometimes it's fun to go on an exploration run without looking at a map ahead of time or bringing your phone along as backup.  Other times, you end up having to backtrack 2 miles because the road you chose to run on didn't have any options to turn and loop back around.  At least I stopped at a gas station to ask after 2 miles, instead of continuing on...I was told that I was on my way to Johnson City if I kept going, and offered a ride back to downtown.  I refused the ride of course.  Next time I might look at a map, and I will almost certainly bring my phone.  All's well that ended well, I just ran a few miles longer than planned and didn't make it back in time to join the group run.  (My original plan was to run 4-5 miles alone and 3-4 with the group). For future reference, I now know that when running in Bristol, Volunteer Parkway is more or less useless.  Nice wide shoulders though! 

In other news, my "best nine" of 2017 (most-liked) on Instagram all involve running, of course!  A good mix in these 9 photos.  My 3rd and most successful marathon, some hill workouts, some good long runs, a finish line dying-face photo from my favorite race, an after-photo from a long run that I almost couldn't finish and my flat-runner photo from the failed half marathon PR attempt.  

and then it snowed

...but I didn't let that stop me from getting my mileage!  AND apparently my lungs are finally recovered because I survived a very chilly run with the guys today, at a pace that was definitely a struggle for me, and I didn't cough at all afterwards!  Hooray!

This week : 

M : group run 4 / 7:53 / 171 ft

T : circuit training 35:00

W : group run 8.5 / 8:02 / 397 ft

R : run w/Beth 6.6 / 8:12 / 338 ft

F : rest

Sa : TRX 40:00

run 6 / 7:48 / 433 ft

Su : group run 7.6 / 7:43 / 495 ft

total miles : 32.8

I decided to check out the Bristol running group this week.  It's hard for me to get motivated to study after driving home from work, so I decided that on the days of the Bristol run group, I would go to the library after work and study til run-time.  It worked really well for me this week.  On Monday I actually got to study outside in one of the city parks because it was so nice out (a little bit chilly, but just barely warm enough, and possibly the last warm day).  Some of the group members were the same ones I see in Abingdon, but there were a few different members as well.  It was really nice to run somewhere different for a change!  And added bonus, the brewery we meet at has a really awesome firepit to warm up by after the run.  

On Friday it snowed pretty much all day, although hardly accumulated, and then it snowed more Saturday.  And Saturday night.  I never had more than 1/2 inch to brush off my car as most of the snow didn't stick, but it did make the roads slick so I had to be a bit more careful while running!  

Today I just wanted the 5 I needed to get to 30 for the week, but I picked a loop I thought was about 6 miles, and it turned out to be 7.6.  Oops.  I let the boys set the pace for most of the run; it was a struggle to keep up at times, but I decided it was ok to make myself work a bit.  Once we hit 6 miles though, my legs were fatiguing, so I decided to slow it down the rest of the way.  It's not often that I run 5 days in one week, and I did put in some really good miles this week especially considering how easy the past two weeks were.  My next planned day off is Thursday, but I expect tomorrow's run to be short and easy with the Bristol group.  

New month, new plan

I spent most of November in and out of a bad head cold, resulting in no running for the entire last week of the month.  The violent coughing finally subsided enough for me to resume running on Friday of this week.  Thankfully the afternoons have been in the high 50s, if it was much colder I probably would have had to wait even longer before running again. It's supposed to get cold again this coming week, I'm hoping I'll be able to continue running without bringing back the cough but I will be taking it one day at a time and trying really hard to stay healthy!

While running over the past few days, and thinking about the past month, I made the decision not to start marathon training until January.  I wanted to jump straight in, but I've decided that's not the smartest decision.  I need to make sure I am fully healthy before I start putting the demands of marathon training on my body.  So, December will be about running for fun.  I still hope to keep my mileage at 25-30 miles a week, but I'll run whatever feels good distance and pace-wise.  I think I'm going to try to get to 5 days a week of running so that each run can be a bit shorter, but I may or may not manage to fit 5 days into the schedule.  Really, I'll be taking it one day at a time! 

This week : 

 M : rest

T : circuit training 35:00

walk 1 mile

W : rest

R : TRX 30:00

F : run 4 / 8:09 / 210 ft

Sa : run 6.7 / 7:53 / 341 ft

Su : TRX 40:00

run 5.1 / 744 / 384 ft

total miles : 15.9

I realize that running 3 days in a row after 7 days off may or may not be the smartest choice, especially given how sore my legs have been from Thursday's TRX, but I just had to go enjoy the warm(ish) sunshine!  It was hard to keep the runs as short as I did, but I did manage to contain myself and not run 10 milers.