2017 running

Total miles: 1,692 through snow, wind, rain, sunshine, and hail! That’s exactly 400 more than last year and was a very satisfying way to spend an extra ~4,000 minutes 🙂 Beyond the numbers, I also gained confidence in my ability to focus and push through longer workouts alone, even in less-than-ideal conditions.

Highlights:

The biggest highlight of my running year was the unexpected, but hard-won strength that I felt in the last 3 miles of my race at the Zeitgeist 13.1. I was able to take advantage of solid training and specific up/downhill pace work to push hard to the finish and had the good luck to be in a position to move up several spots in the process. The resulting ~4-minute half-marathon PR on a really tough course made all those tough workouts feel even more worthwhile.

Another happy achievement was hitting a Sub-20 5k at altitude in October on a fun, mixed road & cross-country style course and going 1-2-3 with my Oiselle Voleé Colorado teammates. I had the courage to push early on and the tenacity to keep my pace up in the tough second half – a combination that I don’t always have in me on race day!
A fast early-fall XC race chasing two very speedy women who are now long-run buddies (plus a third strong runner gal who was at the race with kids). My Fall long runs were much more fun with a group and I got to explore more trails and be pushed on some long Uphill that I likely wouldn’t have completed without stopping if I’d run them alone.
Some fun exploring runs, from my early spring stint in California to a run today in balmy New Mexico.
Lots of really strong, solid workouts that left me happily surprised and excited with how much my fitness had improved since last year.

And the lows:

My mid-Spring hamstring injury was a real downer since I had been developing some solid strength going into it. I did end up having a great year of racing in spite of the time off, but it did force me to miss out on the spring track and road races that I’d wanted to try.
A painful, and slower-than-last-year opening XC race against the college women in Colorado Springs. It wasn’t an awful race, but it was a brutal return to racing after my single early Spring XC 5k and made it clear that I was still building back to where I’d been fitness-wise when I got injured.
My final race at the RSNA conference fun run was not what I’d been hoping for. I keep emotionally feeling like it was a total disaster when realistically it was a solid, but underwhelming performance. I didn’t run sub-19:00 5k pace, but I was still much faster than last year and still hit a season best time for this year. Considering the crazy conference schedule that I was on, combined with a lack of sleep, lots of pre-presentation anxiety, and tired legs from 2 days of walking around the conference center with a heavy backpack, I really shouldn’t be disappointed with the effort…but I sure am looking forward to taking another crack at sub-19 in 2018!

Goals for the new year:

Figure out how to optimize work and running time to re-balance and be able to get the most out of my training while still performing well in my work/research. I’ve been heavily prioritizing work lately and am pleased with the productivity but NOT with the resulting slight weight gain, achy back, and computer-induced wrist pain! I’d feel old looking at this list of maladies but have experienced most of those during the more intense studying/paper or thesis writing/research data processing periods since undergrad *shrug*
To help with both the running and the sedentary-work-environment induced imbalances I’m planning to add exercises from Running Rewired to my routine. My back is already thanking me for putting this book on my Christmas list!
18:30 5k, with at least 1 track race and some XC fun
Sub 1:30 half OR complete my first 26.2! Going for the full marathon gives me a bit of nerves every time I think about it, but I have wanted to try one for quite some time and am looking forward to tagging along with my 26.2-experienced running buddies and picking their brains for marathon wisdom this year.