2014 Running Recap

Although I ended 2014 on the sidelines for most of December, 2014 was a great year for me and this was my first full year of running after getting started in March of 2013.

Statistics for 2014:

Total miles run: 2704.5
Longest Run Streak: 121 days (Feb. 21 to June 21, 1021.8 miles, 8.4 miles per day)
Most miles in 1 week: 85 (August 11-17)
PR's: 9.
Marathons: 3
Half Marathons: 7

When I started 2014, I had the following PR's:

5K: 25:06
10K: 50:18
Half Marathon: 1:52:49
Marathon: 3:51:10

By the end of June, I blew all of those PR's away with the following new times:

5K: 21:17 (Middle Tennessee Shootout)
10K: 45:04 (Purity Moosic City)
Half Marathon: 1:38:46 (Derby - Louisville)
Marathon: 3:26:21 (Grandma's Marathon, BQ)

The year started with the Goofy challenge at Disney World.  My goal was to get under 2 hours for the half and come back the next day and get under 4 hours for the full.  I has happy with my times of 1:56:01 and 3:58:01.  This was a lot of fun staying with the HRC runners in a house near the park and I look forward to doing this again, maybe in 2016.

February through May is when I got to work on speed.  I wasn't even thinking about the possibility of qualifying for the 2015 Boston Marathon until I took over 10 minutes off my half marathon PR at the Tom King half (1:42:05) in March and 5 weeks later lowered the half PR to 1:38:46 and Derby in Louisville. 

We went to Seattle for a vacation the last week of May where I made a 15K debut in the Emerald City 15K and took my first official age group and Grandmaster's win with a time of 1:09:05 (7:25 pace).  A few hours later we boarded the Grand Princess for a 7-day cruise where I spent a 22 mile day on the treadmill in a cruise week of 72 miles.

A few weeks later, I crossed the finish line at Grandma's Marathon with a time of  3:26:21 and was making plans for Boston in 2015.

August and September were tough as I was having soreness in the right leg.  Not every day, but quite a bit, so I ran the Twin Cities marathon in early October as an easy paced training run.  I never would have thought a 3:50 marathon would be an easy paced marathon, considering it was my second fastest of 5 marathons.

The left calf sprain came two days after the Twin Cities marathon and I surprisingly came back after 5 days off and a few days after that my right leg issues were gone and have not returned.  However, after two hill races in November, a left abductor strain sidelined me for most of December. 

It's slowly getting better and I have been able to resume running.

Looking ahead to this year, January and February will be spent getting some conditioning back that was lost over the last month or so and getting the body back to 100% so I am ready for Boston in April.

In July, my wife and I get to run in the Napa to Sonoma half marathon, which should be a lot of fun.

The summer will be spent training for the Berlin Marathon, which is on September 27th.  I'm hoping this is my key race of 2015 and that I will have had several healthy months going into this race.  It's flat and fast.

I hope everyone out there has a safe and healthy 2015!