2009 : My Look Back

I took the opportunity on my run this morning to think about my running last year. I started the year coming off an injury, slowly building a base in order to train for my third marathon. It wasn’t an ideal way to begin striving for a life lived in motion but it was my starting point nonetheless.

Without having the benefit of looking back over blog entries or review the numbers on my spreadsheet, I feel very positive about 2009. I had no serious injuries and showed good sense after my marathon by taking a few weeks off to fully recover. I spent many lunch hours in the gym with weights and other strength training exercises or outside taking a walk. I’ve more than doubled the amount of walking I get in each day as result of moving to a house (a house I own…along with the loan people). I stayed active on all my vacations and even built some of them around being active – traveling for a marathon and hiking mostly. To top off the year, I have built my running base up to 50 miles per week and I am running strong going in to training for my fourth marathon.

Looking back at my resolution for 2009: Be Consistent, my current higher weekly mileage and strength and confidence is proof I was able to achieve this goal. I can’t say I was always consistent with my nutrition but I do think I am getting better. Rather than take my own word for it, though, I took a look at the numbers to get an even better sense of my year.

• I took over 7 Million Steps, which means I traveled 3,193 miles on my own two feet.
• That is an average of 19,440 steps or 8.73 miles each day!
• I ran 233 times for a total annual mileage of 1,436 miles – 45% of my total miles (3,193) were run.
• I ran on 219 days or better yet, I took a rest day 146 days. This also means that on 14 days I ran twice.
• I spent 249 hours 14 minutes and 15 seconds running over the year, added together that is 10 days 9 hours and 15 minutes spent running or 0.12% of the year.
• I increased my lifetime running mileage to 4,127 miles.
• I ran 9 races in 2009 – 1 5k, 1 10k, 3 10-milers, 3 half marathons and one full marathon.
• That equals 104.8 miles raced. I also PR’ed in every one of those distances. Go me!
• My average distance per run was 6.17 miles with an average time per run of 1 hour 4 minutes 11 seconds at an average pace of 10:24 per mile.
• On average I ran 26.82 miles per week. (This needs to increase!)
• I ran the highest monthly mileage in October (177.21 miles) and the lowest in June (54.09).
• However, I took the most steps in the month of September (756,102) but June was also the lowest month for steps by far (401,715).
• I did some form of cross-training 97 times. Strength training, 89 times.

It was a good year for sure but I think I can do even better!

I was also able to achieve several of the personal goals I set for myself:

• Run a marathon or two. Check. Keybank Vermont City Marathon. Oh yeah!
• Write a short story. I haven’t put pen to paper (or rather fingers to keyboard) but I do have some ideas floating around in my head so this one is a continuing work in progress.
• Try something new. Check. Camping is so much fun.
• Buy a house. Check. YES!

Daily Dozen:
5.5 mile run @ morning