Cold (24) and very windy today. Just did an easy run but had to run about half of the run into the wind so made it harder and much colder. Felt pretty good today but just took it easy. 57:14 (8:11 avg) Before jumping into the New Year with plans and goals I wanted to take a look back at 2008 to see what went right and what I can improve upon. First the highlights: 1. I ran 2527 miles this year which blows away my previous best year by over 700 miles. I also logged most miles for a week and most miles for a month. The funny thing about this is that in the spring I was very inconsistent with most of my months logging less than 150 miles per month. If I can stay consistent for a whole year 3000 miles might happen next year. 2. I had three racing goals for 2008. Qualify for Boston, break 1:30 for a half and break 40 minutes for a 10k. I accomplished two of these goals and might have got the third but didn’t run a 10k all year to even have a shot at sub 40. Getting the BQ was a big accomplishment for me. I have never thought of myself as a marathoner so to train for this and achieve it gave me great satisfaction. It did however leave me hungry for more. I still don’t think I have ran my best in the marathon and hope to give it a better shot in 2009. Breaking 1:30 for the half was huge for me. Coming into this year I had ran 5 half marathons in the 1:30’s and really wanted to get under 1:30. Finally getting this showed me what is possible with hard work. It also gives me a lot of hope since I ran this 3 weeks after the Chicago marathon and without any focused half training. 3. My training was much more consistent. I got off to a good start in Jan and then really feel off in Feb, Mar, Apr and May. In June I got serious and from that point stayed very consistent for the rest of the year. My fall racing results came off of only about 5 months of serious training so I am hopeful that if I keep consistent throughout 2009 I will see better results. Disappointments: 1. I already mentioned this earlier but I can’t go several months with inconsistent training and expect good results. This has been a pattern in my running for several years and hopefully 2009 I can make it different. 2. Chicago marathon. I really pumped myself up for this race and it turned out to be a huge letdown. The weather was not the best but I also made many mistakes in the race. I did however learn a lot from this race. First, never under estimate the weather and make adjustments for it. Second, you can’t make up for lack of specific training in the marathon. I went into Chicago with not enough MP training runs and it really showed up in the race. I was much better prepared for Huntsville. 3. Lack of racing. I really enjoy racing and running different distances. I only ran 5 races in 2008. I think racing prepares you to race better so you need to do it more often to achieve better results. This is something that I want to do more of in 2009. 4. Lack of faster paced training. Because of an inconsistent base I was not able to switch into faster paced training. Now that I have a decent base I hope that I can start working more on race specific speed workouts. So all in all I am very happy with my running in 2008 and feel that I have built a good foundation that I can improve on. Hope everyone has a Happy New Year!! | 