2013 Year in Review (Running and Everything Else)

Is it too late to publish a 2013 year in review post?  What's the timeline for that sorta thing?  Perhaps I should start my 2014 year in review post now?!?  I follow a lot of blogs, most in some form or another involve running or an active lifestyle, and over the past few weeks I have read countless "year in review posts."  I had the intention of writing and posting a year in review post before the New Year, much like I had the intention of publishing my North Face Endurance Challenge Championship race report before the New Year...but we see how well that worked out :-(

Before traveling too far down the road of "how 2013 went,"  I wanted to revisit my goals at the start of 2013 from my first post of last year, 2013 - A New Year.

Maybe it's the engineer in me, but when thinking about things I want to accomplish in 2013 I wound up creating S.M.A.R.T. goals:

• Run 1300 miles for 2013
• In terms of attainable, I ran over 1000 miles in 2012 compared to ~600 in 2011.  My goal for 2012 was 1200.  I fell short but the goal drove me to achieve more then I thought I could.
• Redesign the blog by June 1st
• Modify the color scheme,  incorporate new plug-ins, create or work with a designer to make a custom template.
• Blog 24 times this year
• This one is pretty self explanatory.  I'm tired of the look and want to change up the blog to something more original..more me.
• Post more about cooking, design, photography, gadgets, school, etc. 
• Create a series on the blog and have at least 6 posts relating to it.  I've never done a series (like Friday review or Tuesday tasting) that I think it will force me to be creative.

I don't think any of the above are easy, but all of them are attainable.  I'm looking forward to writing about our recent week at the beach and goal races for 2013 in the month of January! 

Run 1300 miles for 2013

After breaking 1500 miles for the year!

I was pretty ecstatic to break the first goal on the list, running 1300 miles in 2013, a few days into December.  Had I been wise, I would've taken the rest of December post North Face Endurance Challenge easy but that's simply not me.  For some silly reason, I decided that 1500 miles, or 200 miles in 28 days seemed like a reasonable goal and I started chasing after it.  With Michelle's help, and unfortunately at the expense of lashing out at my family several times over the holidays, I accomplished that goal on New Years Eve by running 13 miles with Michelle by my side (for 6 of them) to close out 2013!

I say at my families expense because I was slightly short/irritable possibly as a result of the increased training and the subsequent pressure I imposed on myself for most of the time I was home, the exact opposite of what I wanted.  Unacceptable.  I'm sorry guys!

I can't seem to quite figure out how to filter activity by both sport (i.e. running excluding biking) and year on Strava but in 2013 I managed to complete the 1500 miles in ~205 activities (245 hours) and roughly 110K of elevation gain.

Redesign the blog by June 1st

It simply didn't happen.  I only have myself to blame for this.  I did learn about Wordpress when I created a website for wedding stuff and I think that's the direction I'll ultimately go when I do make the transition.  Maybe it'll happen in 2014?  Probably not...but one can always dream.

Blog 24 times this year

I managed to post 29 times in 2013.  I would consider this partial success.  I say that because although I managed to better my goal of 2 posts a month, I didn't really venture out too much from race reports and running events, specifically my goal included:

Post more about cooking, design, photography, gadgets, school, etc

which I did to a certain extent but not enough to consider it a success.

Create a Series with 6 Posts
I did manage to do this but again I drifted a bit because I didn't sustain my Where's Waldo Wednesday series.  I think I've figured out how I want to change this in 2014 but more on that later.

In 2013, I managed to PR at just about every distance from 5k (although I do know I ran faster in HS but not sure of the length of those courses - some may have been short) up to 50 miles.  I talked about this a bit in my One-Month-Coundown post for the North Face Endurance Challenge and also in my Crooked Road 24HR race report.

I'm super pleased with how I grew this year as a runner.  I managed to join a group of runners, UltraVT, that have helped me fall in love with running trails and given me the confidence to take the next step, tackling my first 100 miler!


Everything Else

2013 was not only a fantastic year for running but also I popped the question to Michelle in the middle of a marathon last March.

Both my parents, and my friend Jonathan who's a photographer and was there to capture then moment, were there for my favorite memory of 2013!

She said YES!

 

Additionally, I'm almost done with school (again) and will graduate in May with my Masters of Arts in Education with licensure in Secondary Mathematics.  I had an amazing experience this fall during my student internship and look forward to this spring when I will student teach five days a week!  I adamantly believe that "you are who your surrounded by" and I'm so privileged to interact and spend time with the inspiring people in the Math Education program at Virginia Tech, I love them!

I have lots of big goals for 2014 (aside from graduating and getting a job) including getting married to my best friend in June!  I'm also going to attempt my first 100 miler in April and have a few races that I'm already registered for leading up to the race, specifically Holiday Lake 50k in mid-Februrary and Terrapin Mountain on March 22nd.

I'm truly blessed and privileged to have so many amazing and inspiring people in my life and want to thank everyone who was a part of 2013 - it was an amazing year!