Of the goals that I set this year and actually worked on, I’ll call this year a resounding success. Overall I had a lot of fun this year while hitting most of my race goals this year. And I did this while actually training smarter, not harder.
I had two running related goals for this year, and they were to go sub 2 hours in a half marathon and sub 20 minutes in a 5K. I had a 1:47 at the Willimantic Half Marathon early in the year while running with my friend Bill Smith, and then managed a 19:50 at the Brooklyn Fair 5K in late August. Guess that means that I will be looking to take things up another notch this year.
There were three things I was looking to do in the multisport world this year. I was looking to qualify for the Duathlon Nationals, go sub 6 hours in a half IRONMAN and sub 12 hours in a IRONMAN. I only did one duathlon this year and got my butt handed to me. Going up an age bracket seems to have increased the completion more than I was expecting. However, there were some takeaways from the race and I am looking to take another shot in 2016. I did hit my other two goals with a 5:59:59 at IRONMAN Timberman 70.3 and crushed my IRONMAN target with a 11:32 at Maryland.
My other race goals had to do with cross. Maryland ended up getting delayed by weather for a couple of weeks and by time I was recovered the cross season was pretty much over. Better luck next year.
The biggest non-race goal for the year was to get my weight under control. By early October I was down to 178 pounds, which I didn’t think I would ever be able to get down to. However, I also have found it to be something that I can’t maintain. In the week before Maryland, while tapering, I gained 2 pounds back and in the two weeks recovering from the race I put another 8 pounds on. It seems that my weight was pretty stable in the 185-190 range until I started to do some heavy lifting at the gym in early December. Going forward I will try to target something right around 185 pounds.
Hopefully in the next day or two I will be able to get my goals and planned race schedule for next year posted. Seeing as that I am already in week 5 of my training schedule I should know what my plans are.
