2015 was a solid year with a record ~1700 miles run. I only ran three races in spite of the bump up in mileage. My half marathon effort at the Caesar Rodney race in March was more or less a where-am-I-fitness-wise test late in a terrible winter's training cycle and I wasn't particularly happy or unhappy with my result (1:39, not nearly my best, not nearly my worst). I finally finished the Boston Marathon under satisfying terms (3:29:11 in wet and windy chill), then ran nearly four and a half minutes faster later in the year in Des Moines (3:24:42, exceeding my expectations). The two marathons were the most intelligent races I've run at that distance, finally having learned how to better pace myself -- that is, spread the effort out, rather than hammer the first half and hang on for dear life in the last 5-10K. I had been considering my semi-retirement from the distance, thinking that this year's Boston might be my last marathon for the foreseeable future, but the two races I ran this year have left me feeling eager to do better. After the 3:24 in Des Moines, I felt I could have gone faster had I only had the confidence to squeeze out a little more in the middle; I briefly considered trying another race six weeks later, but while my legs were ready to do the work, it turned out my mind was done with the long mileage for the year.
I concluded 2015 with glittering visions of 2016.
Goals for filling in this year's running log:
1) 1700 miles last year was a record output for me, but I think I need to bump it up even more if I want to really approach my potential here. In these final maintenance weeks in January, before I have to dive into the training cycle for Vermont City, I'm going to work on increasing the low-intensity miles so that I have a good base of longer running in my legs prior to adding the quality workouts as well as riding up on the mileage scale. Everything I have read about good marathon racing indicates the more miles, the better as long as I can stay healthy doing them -- it won't do me any good if I try to do 60-70 miles a week and then get hurt, so I'm going to do as much as I can given the time I have during the week without pushing injury. This year I plan for solid training cycles focusing on higher mileage and strong pace work.
2) I'm 39. After November 8, 2016, I will be moving into a different age group -- master's running. I'm not leery of that -- actually, as I've gotten closer to that milestone the last couple years, I've begun looking forward to starting this next phase of running, but I view the line between now and then as very blurry. I don't think my best running years are necessarily behind me and I don't think that as soon as I turn 40, I will have to kiss them goodbye. I've been running marathons for 11 years now and I've finally started to run them with my brain as much as my legs and heart, and with smart training and smarter tactics I think I still have it in me to go under 3:22 and run a personal record. My racing goals this year are all focused on setting new PRs at whatever distance I end up racing. Most of my records were set in 2004, when, for whatever reason, I was in excellent form. I have come close, twice, to resetting some of them: 7 seconds shy at the Atlantic City Marathon in 2012, 10 seconds shy at the Caesar Rodney half in 2014 (on a much harder course than where I ran my record, too). I ran an on-the-way record for 10 miles at that same Caesar Rodney race (also harder than the Broad Street course where I'd PR'd before). These much more recent results lead me to believe that with the training I outlined above, I can take serious aim at my best times, shooting to break them.
3) Race more. I did only three races last year and only finished seven in the last three years. There are PRs other than the half-marathon and marathon I'd also like to break. I don't do many 5Ks because I tend to focus my training on the longer distances, but I should be able to do better than 21:15 even so. I have not done a 10K since 2012 and would like to work on that old PR as well. I'd like to do the Bix again this year but that one is at an odd time of the year and it involves arranging vacations, so trying to break what is probably my favorite PR (set on an exceptionally cool July morning) may not happen. And even setting aside the fact that races are opportunities to set new PRs, racing helps keep my legs sharp and gives me a good map of my fitness. I may not have to wonder and worry about how my training is going to translate into racing if I run more races ahead of the big targets.
As I move farther into the year, I may have to adjust my goals up or down, and make room for new ones as well as add more specific subsets of the three I've described above. In the last six or eight weeks, at the close of my year's racing and training, it's been easy to think about aggressive goals for the next year when I haven't had to actually do anything toward them; soon it will be time to lay them out and get to work. I look forward to it, and look forward to trying to chronicle my year's journey here.
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