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.

Overall I would have to say that this past season was a success. I reached two of my goals, and they were the two that were the most important to me. Stay health and have FUN! It was a different year and I really enjoyed the new challenges that it brought. The only goal that I was a little disappointed with missing trying to finish a Cat.3 ‘cross race in the top 50%. I figured out rather quickly that what I was working on for time trialing didn’t carry over to ‘cross. That is something that can be fixed for next season.

My training goals all worked out pretty good. Based on the Performance Manager in TrainingPeaks, my fitness was the best it has been while reducing the time I spend training by about 20%. I mostly kept my weight under control, even if I still look like a beached whale in all my race photos.

Basically I build my season around two peaks this year. In late April I peaked for the Willi Whammer 1/2 Marathon followed two weeks later by the Race of Rams Duathlon. After that I took some time off before building to my main races of the season. Although I was trained, I botched the recovery going into Timberman and had a little bit of and off day. Learning how to properly time a recover before a big race is something that I need to work on.