Sunday, January 3, 2010

Looking back, looking ahead

I guess I haven't done much blogging in the last year. I hope this makes up for it.

I started 2009 off not really knowing what I was going to do. I had recently gotten over a knee injury that kept me sidelined for almost 2 months and derailed my marathon plans, and things were finally starting to get back to normal. I ran a decent New Year's Day 5k, and I was feeling optimistic about the future. I began planning on the LA Marathon in May, some fast 5ks, and an encore to my 5 minute mile. But, before the end of January, my knee pain came back, and I forced myself to take some more time off. I later figured out that the injury wasn't really a knee injury, but my IT band. I learned a couple stretches and strengthening exercises, and have only had the occasional flare up since.

My marathon plans ended up getting put on hold, I skipped the 5 minute mile thing, and really focused on the 5k. I managed to do several 5ks this year. Progress was slow, but it did come as I went from a 20:42 on New Year's Day 2009 to a 18:46 in 2010 (race report yet to come).

The arrival of spring brought another season of track. I was again coaching at the middle school, and this year there were actually a couple kids I knew from when they were in the elementary school that I work at. Once again, we had a small team, but we really had some talented runners, which made it a lot of fun. In the fall, I was able to coach cross country at the high school. What a difference! Don't get me wrong, I love my middle schoolers, but it is so nice to be coaching kids who are actually motivated to run! We had a good season, saw tons of progress with the kids, and the boys team even made it to state. How awesome is that?! I'm hoping to be able to coach track at the high school this year. If not, I'll be back at the middle school.

This year, I am running a half marathon on January 30th and the Ragnar Relay Del Sol February 26th-27th. I really want to run another full marathon this year (it's been almost 2 years since my last one). I'm thinking of the Whiskey Row Marathon in Prescott, AZ in May, and maybe another one in the fall. I still want to try for that 3 hour marathon. I also want to keep working on the 5k. This last one was only 12 seconds off my 5 year old PR, and I know I can beat that. Gosh, I might as well throw in a 10k and a mile race to get every distance under a marathon. Hmm...

Hopefully things will go as planned. I hope you all have a successful new year as well.

5 comments:

Ginny M said...

Great goals for 2010! Happy running!

Pat said...

Whiskey Row? Are you looking for the hardest marathon around? That's a tough one. Another one is the new Mt. Lemmons Marathon down in Tucson. It's 6000 miles up the whole way.

Good luck in 2010.

The Boring Runner said...

wow! That is a crazy fast 5K. What did you focus on to get that kind of speed?

Ax said...

Pat, have you run Whiskey Row before? I know it's supposed to be tough, but is it really as tough as they say?

Adam, I've done a lot of mile and 1/4 mile repeats, as well as several 5k time trials through the neighborhood. I've done a few 5k races this fall and nothing seemed to click, so I really wasn't expecting sub-19 at this race. No complaints though!

Jeffrey said...

It cannot have effect as a matter of fact, that's exactly what I suppose.
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