2015 Year in Review

It's been a few years since I've done any sort of year in review for the blog.  I guess it's mostly because in the last few years, I only "trained" for a portion of the year so updating the blog and reflecting on things for the year didn't really make sense.  This past year has been the first year in quite a few years where I really tried to train over the entire year which included training through last winter.  Most of this training was for the purpose of trying to get back to Boston which did result in a qualifying time last May, but as it turned out, this wouldn't be enough.  While there was always a desire to get back to Boston, if I don't, it's not the end of the world.  I suppose as the bombings fade into history, the feeling of wanting to go back has begun to diminish, which is a shame.  As runners, we should never forget. I suppose I could always try to Rossi my way to a BQ time.  I find the whole Rossi thing to be fascinating.  As someone whose marathon times are near the time that he allegedly ran to get into Boston, it's interesting to see how his training paces and race times are not similar to anything that I'm doing which leads me to conclude that he definitely cheated.

I don't really want to do the heavy training that was required in the past, but I do want to maintain some level of running that allows me to remember why I fell in in love with the sport to begin with, but to give me enough free time to do other things that inevitably get put on the backburner when training gets more involved. Having said that, while going through my Daily Mile profile a few weeks ago, I realized that I was on track to break my record for yearly mileage of 1891 which was set back in 2009 and that I only needed to average about 35 miles a week to get to 2000 for the year.  While 2000 is a nice round number, it's just a number, one more than 1999 and one less than 2001.  Alas, with the odd missed run and the Christmas break, the 2000 goal is unattainable right now.  I am currently at 1950 for the year so a new record which included a run today.  I think I may have actually run more at some point over a 12 month period in the past, but for the calendar year this is a record, with still a few days to go.

Speaking of which, this was the first day of a new training cycle to prep for a May 1st marathon.  Again, im targetting one of the Toronto based ones on that date.  Yes, I'm even considering the Goodlife course again even with the disastrous markings from this past year.  I just have to be more aware of the possible screw ups and be prepared to adapt. The weather has been pretty good these past few weeks, but as Murphy's law would indicate, the first day of my training plan had mother nature dump a few cm of snow with rain on the ground. Ending up going to the gym. First treadmill run since March. Yeah, I've been paying gym membership fees for the past 9 months. I did go a few times to swim, but no treadmill running or anything else since March.

I donated blood last week trying to get at least one donation in for the year, probably should have done it sooner so the first few weeks are going to be a bit of an effort in recovery trying to recover my red blood cells.  I think this upcoming year, I will try not to go crazy on the mileage, but will try to do more strength training.  I've always said that in the past, and I may do it for a week or so and then I just stop doing it.  Leading up to my 5k back in November, I spent about a month doing core work and leg strength exercises and that seemed to work allowing me to PR, but in December, I slipped off the bandwagon.  I hope to change that in the new year and to do at least 2 strength training sessions per week and to supplement that with more stretching exercises. I've been going to the RMT during December to use up my benefits and it's embarrassing how inflexible I am and how much it hurts when I get an assisted leg stretch.  Of course, this is all good in theory, whether it works out, time can only tell.

As for races this year, there weren't that many. There were the two marathons and then two 10k's, two 5k's and an 8k race. I may try to do more races next year, but I'll have to see how the training goes.  I will probably not use races as training runs as I've done in the past. I'm currently registered for Around the Bay on  April 3 and I'm thinking of trying for the silver medal which requires a 2:15 gun time over 30k.  This would be 7:15 min/mile pace which is the pace that would be required for a 3:10 marathon.   I've never actually raced a 30k. Any I've done in the past have always been done at part of some marathon training thing as either a long run or marathon pace run so this should be new. 

Wish any readers out there, the best of wishes over the holidays and may your training for 2016 be injury-free.