The past two years have been a decrease in the yearly milage sadly. In 2021, I racked up over 3,400 miles, and since then, it has not been nearly as good. Last year, I just eked over 3,000 miles, and this year, I am about one hundred miles short. 3,000 miles is technically an arbitrary number that my college coach would set as the goal for the year, but it is nice and round, and it does seem to represent a good year of training, so despite its arbitrariness, I still like it and think it is important, so not hitting it for the first time in three years is disappointing.
So, much like last year, I will be starting from a deficit. I was unhappy with how my first few races went in 2023, and a large portion of that had to do with having little training at the end of 2022 due to injury, and I had to start the rebuild over, and although I think I am retaining a little more fitness at the end of this year due to a slightly less debilitating injury, it is not healing nearly as quickly, so now the year is over, and I am still not ready to fully train, and I have been saying and thinking I am close since it happened October 15th, which also coincidentally was the same day I read an article on Trail Runner Magazine that said running is not everything, to which I scoffed at, and then have not been able to run the way I wanted to since then. A cruel joke.
This makes it feel hard to say that this was a successful year, but my races want to argue with that statement. I ran Boston for the first time, and considering my training, my time reflected what I was capable of, but it was not a PR, just one of the best experiences of my life. I ran a great Boilermaker and a massive PR, and I am proud of that race. Then I had a mountain running season that went well with a third-place finish at Swain, a first-place finish at Run It to the Summit, and a 39th place finish at Peaks Pike Marathon. I was also asked to and accepted an offer to start running with Miles and Macros. All of which were great and amazing experiences, and it felt like I was doing what I wanted to do. I was no longer pinned to the roads, I had finally made a conversion to the terrain I wanted to be on, and I was doing pretty well with it.
The problem is that it was all supposed to culminate with the JFK 50 miler, but due to a lack of self-control and a deterioration of tendon stability, I was not able to run my first official ultra, thus delaying this goal yet again. When you do not even make it to the start line of the race you have been looking forward to for over a year, it feels like a failure. What is worse is that there probably will not be a chance to run an official ultra in 2024 due to my race schedule and the strongest want to stay healthy for a whole year. Next year, I am again signed up for Boston in the Spring, so I will not be running a spring ultra, and I have Berlin in September, and what I learned from this year, is that I should not try to cram in another big race after this one. Of course, I am not complaining about the great privilege I have to be able to run both Boston and Berlin, two of the biggest and most revered races in the world, but I think I know where my heart is, and it is not on the road.
So my hopes for 2025 are to run the Arches 50 miler in January, assuming that they have it again, because in 2024, it is occurring on my birthday, but sadly due to student teaching, and now the fact that I would not have been able to train properly, I will not be able to do it, so please still be around in 2025. Arches is my favorite place I have ever been, and it would be amazing to run an ultra there. Then in the fall of 2025, I would like to run something like the Javelina Jundred. I really want to get to that hundred-mile distance, and I think I will be ready, if I can train healthily next year, recover from my longer races properly, and then slowly build up over the course of two years. I hate the long game, but here we are.
However, there is one accomplishment that I had that I did not have last year, and that is having an activity logged every day this year on Strava, whether it was my typical running, indoor biking, hiking, or the newly dreaded elliptical, there was something logged every day, which is an accomplishment that I am proud of. Not every day was a hard workout or anything, but there was something productive done every day to keep the body moving. There were many days, when I was not feeling great, but I still did something, and despite being hurt, I tried to find ways to be active that would cause the least amount of discomfort, like riding the bike or the elliptical, and if all of these miles were stacked together, I would have reached over 3,000 miles, but that is not how this game works sadly. Also I do not have Strava premium, so I do not get my year in review stats, so I do not get an official acknowledgement of my 365 active days.
I am hopeful that over the course of the next two weeks my posterior tibial tendon will make a full recovery, and I will be able to get a full training cycle in to run a more successful Boston than last year, but the health needs to return quickly. I miss workouts, and I miss long runs, and it is much easier to hang out with friends, when I can run like I normally do. Life is better with running, and although it may not be EVERYTHING, it is still an integral part of my life, and I miss it. Also I have been eating at least one cookie at breakfast, lunch, and dinner, to try and get rid of all of the cookies parents gave me at work, so my stomach would also appreciate the higher level of exercise to help burn through this never-ending supply of holiday junk food. So here is to happier, healthier, stronger, and smarter running in 2024! See you all out there! (hopefully soon)
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