2014 was a great year.
I accomplished a lot more than I expected. I’m faster than ever, more aerobically fit and had my best year running.
I wanted to break a 20 minute 5k and did so this year. It wasn’t an official race, but I ran about 19:42. I didn’t warm up either. If I had, I think I would have been closer to 19 min. Sub 20 minutes isn’t my ultimate goal, but it was the first on my way. Next is sub 18 min.
Throughout the year, I broke my weekly mileage PR a number of times, including two weeks in a row in my December push, 77.1 mi and 77.3 mi. I expect to go beyond that sometime in the next couple of months.
I also had several monthly mileage PRs. Breaking 200 mi in a month was a big deal for me. And December’s 312.1 mi is huge. I’ll probably beat that in 2015 as well, but I don’t have any specific plans to do so.
I achieved some racing goals as well. In April I set a 41 minute PR at the Mt. Si Ultra 50k, finishing in 4:35:04. I was only couple minutes off from the finish time that I visualized leading up to the race.
In May I narrowly missed my 5 hour goal at the Soaring Eagle 50k by about 5 minutes. Without knowing the course at all beforehand, I did pretty well. And I had my first top 5 finish, though the field was pretty small.
In June I also narrowly missed my finish time goal, 5:30:00, at the Rattlesnake Ridge Run 50k by only 1:15. Finishing 10th was awesome.
Unfortunately, I didn’t make it to my first 50 miler, rolling my ankle three weeks prior.
But in September I ran the Sri Chinmoy Self Transcendence 7 hour race. I missed my reach goal of 50 mi, but did well to beat my primary goal of 40 mi. Officially, I finished with 42.784 mi, finishing 3rd.
This winter I’ve been running some shorter races primarily to work on improving my speed. Earlier in the year I set a goal to win a race. At the time, I meant an ultra, but I didn’t specify in my actual wording of the goal. I’ll leave it up to you as to whether it makes a difference, but I’ve now added “win an ultra” to the list. Anyway, I won my first two shorter trail races, an 8k and a 5 mi. I finished 3rd in the third race and have two more to go, possibly three if I feel up to a 5k or 10k the weekend after my upcoming 50k.
I set my most recent 2014 goal on Dec 7. I’ve already been running everyday since Aug 13. I wanted to push myself a little more and decided to finish out the year running at least 10 mi each day. I ran over 10 mi for 25 days straight, averaging a little over 11 mi for Dec 7-31. I did doubles once. And triples on my last 10k race day, a short warm up, the race, and a short run with the dogs once I got home. But I got in my mileage everyday.
As for my goals for yearly totals, I didn’t really set any until a few months ago. I’m not sure exactly when, though. I wanted to break 2000 mi for the year and 200,000 ft gain. I broke 200,000 ft gain the end of November, so I increased that to 230,000 ft. With my big December push and my final run of 2014, I ended up with 2003.8 mi and 234,799 ft gain. This was a big build up year for me. I only hit 1000 mi on Aug 21, so I did my second 1000 mi in 4 months and 10 days, and I took November fairly easy. I’m already thrilled with my year running, and that all makes it even better.
I’m currently working on my 2015 goals and will post something in the next month. I’m working on some big plans.
Hope your 2014 was as great as mine and 2015 is even better.