I am not a fan of end-of-year, new year posts. The beginning of a new year is completely arbitrary, and I personally think that starting a new year in the middle of winter is silly. Plus, deciding to wait until January 1st to start working towards goals is counter-productive. The best time to start trying to achieve your goals is right now, no matter when that is. Why put it off for a period of time to wait for a “new year” to start?
But with all that said, I find myself in a reflective mood and also looking forward to what will happen in the next months or years. As far as running goes, 2015 was crap. My hamstring injury prevented me from training at a high level for the whole year, although I still did achieve one or two decent performances. I wish I could say it’s completely healed now, but I honestly don’t know if it will ever be 100%. There are weeks that go by where it feels amazing and I forget I was even injured, but then I will try to stretch or sit in a car for more than an hour and it pops back up and reminds me to be careful.
But there were good things in 2015 too: my beautiful daughter was born, many of my friends were married, and I became a USATF Level One coach. I also added Texas to my list of states where I have qualified for Boston, even if it was a dumb move on my part.
My only goal for the future is to be injury-free. Everything else is secondary. That, coupled with certain ideas presented at my USATF coaching class, have convinced me to re-visit my views on supplemental training. I was pretty diligent about doing core and rehabilitative work after I got injured, but that has diminished lately. I intend to make that a priority again, and not just until I feel better. It needs to be a central aspect of my training now.
With that in mind, I do have a performance-related goal for this year. I want to win the Rehoboth Beach Marathon in December. Past victors have run in the 2:35-2:40 range, so if I can stay healthy and get a good training cycle in, I think I have a shot. I’ve never won a marathon before; the highest place I’ve managed is third. I did share the lead with another runner at the Twisted Ankle Marathon a few years ago, but both of us were disqualified after a course marshal sent us the wrong way and we ended up cutting the course. Perhaps this will be my redemption. Stay tuned for more information!
0 Comments