2013 Recap & 2014 Goals

In terms of life, 2013 was a pretty good year. I got married to Matthew on June 29th, which was the happiest day of my life. I also completed my PhD this summer, which has been 8 years in the making. Two of my good friends got married, as well as my cousin, and I got to see my family more that I usually do. On the negative front... my mother was very sick during the month of March though (her appendix ruptured and there was a secondary infection), and my grandmother passed away in October. Also, the stress of not having a steady job for more than a few months at a time is also really getting to me.

In terms of running...

The stats for 2013:

• Total mileage: 2317
• Highest weekly mileage: 56.5
• Lowest weekly mileage: 18

The positives for 2013:

• I was 8th female in the Umstead Marathon
• 0 weeks of 0 miles

The negatives for 2013:

• I didn't train for anything
• I didn't PR in anything (and didn't really race that much)
• I felt like I was always nursing some injury
• I felt tired and unmotivated
• My total mileage was the lowest that is has been in 2 years
• My racing times were some of the worst in the past few years

My goals for the first half of 2014 are to (1) try and work on core strength and flexibility, (2) try to increase my weekly mileage (probably by adding a few easy doubles), and (3) try to eat less refined sugar. The reasons behind the first two are rather obvious... to be a better runner. The third goal is also related to this goal (i.e., you are what you eat), but I'm also hoping that eating more "real" food will give me more energy and help to solve some of the GI issues I've been having lately (I'm thinking eating a whole bunch of junk at 1AM because my stomach is growling might not be the best idea for morning runs).

I also have a goal race for the 1st half of the year, the 2014 Boston Marathon. I want to have fun, but still run it respectably. The first year I ran it (2010), I had a ton of fun and finished in right around 3:23. The second year I ran it (2011), I went out way to fast and finished ~3min slower. I want to remember having fun again because I'm not sure if/when I'll run this race again.

After April, I want to take some time to recover and heal up. Then, I think I'm going to be done with marathon training for a while. I still have goals in shorter races, and training for half marathons and below leaves me with more time for things other than running.