Year in Review

2012 was a great year for me.  I trained hard and stayed healthy through my races.  I ran a personal best for a road marathon and completed my main goal of finishing the Leadville 100.  Leadville was one of the most fulfilling experiences of my life.  The experiences leading up to the race and finishing the race itself was a journey of a lifetime.

I came short of my mileage goal in large part to recovery and injuries after Leadville.  My goal was 2,000 miles.  I finished with 1,713.54 miles.  This is a 600 mile improvement from 2011.  I had a vertical goal of 200,000 feet and exceeded that with a total of 227,724!

After Leadville I was wrecked.  My feet were shredded and my left shin was sore for a couple of months.  My ankles were in bad shape.  Every run felt like I just finished 20 miles.  I fought through some of the pain and increased my mileage in November.  In December I got a bad groin injury playing basketball.  That sidelined me for 2 weeks.  I'm just picking up again.  I ran 5 times last week at 5 miles a clip and I'm starting to feel better.

I bought a new pair of trail and road shoes.  I'm ready to commit to 2013.  I'm hopeful that the injuries are behind me.  I only have 2 races on tap so far.  In April I will run the Zane Grey 50 miler in Arizona.  I'm excited about the course.  In late June I will be running the San Juan Solstice 50 miler.  This is definitely high on my list of races I want to run.  I'm sure I'll run a couple 50k or trail marathons as well.  As of today I do not have a 100 mile race on my schedule.  I'm not committing to one right now but there are some options later in the year if I feel the urge.

I'm looking forward to some "adventure" runs  this year.  I will be running the Rim to Rim to Rim in the Grand Canyon.  This is a 54 mile group run.  It is only 2 weeks after Zane Grey so recovery will be short.  I would like to run the 4 pass loop around the Maroon Bells again and improve on last year's time.  We are planning on a week long family trip to Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons.  I'm going to try to find a day to run out there as well.

I'm starting off 2013 with a 15 mile run.  Cheers!