Kicking off 2014, is it too late for a New Year's Post?...

What is the statute of limitations on a Year in Review and/or Goals post in the blog world? We have until the end of January to put it out there for the world to see, right? RIGHT?

 I have started to post three different times now. The first was deleted by my laptop mid-post. Still not sure how that happened but clearly the laptop did not deem it worthy of internet. Since all my other posts are prize winning works of literary genius, I guess it wasn't up to standards. *ahem* The second post just was a weird story about a 5k PR that really wasn't. (The person running with me at the time - who was the race directors daughter - convinced me that we were off course and that we needed to turn even though there was not a mark on the road and the course was very clearly marked up to that point. Turns out, we cut the course by a tenth of a mile or so. The daughter ended up winning 1st OA female and I had a 30 second PR. It didn't feel right. A result that needed an asterisk for explanation. I think I am going to go with my next best time in which I ran the full course.) So the guilt from unintentionally cutting the course carried over to my blog post and I decided not to hit "publish" on that one either. And now I realize given the build-up you will be expecting this post to be GREAT. ha ha.

 Some numbers from last year...

  Swim: 119 miles. (210,113 yards but doesn't it sound so much further when you say it in miles?) I swam most of that on my own leading into IM LOU in August but definitely credit masters swimming for keeping my yardage up towards the end of the year. Some mornings there are just two of us so the guilt of being a no show helps get me out of bed. I would probably benefit from being around more (faster) swimmers but this program is very convenient in time and location so I just hope that they don't decide to do away with it. I assume the low swimmer to coach ratio can't be a money maker for them.

  Bike: 2830 miles. Up from 2130 the previous year. I credit all the century rides I did with one Swim Bike Mom leading up to IM CDA. I am a little sad she isn't doing another IM this year so we can recreate some of those crazy rides. I think my personal favorite was one in Athens that had about 10 participants. The SAG wagon took their job very seriously. We managed to bring up the back of the pack for several miles until we agreed to sprint ahead to catch and pass the people in front of us thus leaving them with the SAG wagon. It was pretty funny as it was not as easy as it seemed and we felt like we had to stay just a little bit ahead for the rest of the day. You would think after all that riding my split at IM LOU would have been better. Sigh. I am sure it helped on some level. Sadly you can't really compare one race course to another so I will never know

  Run: 959 miles! I had no idea I was so close to 1000 miles for the year until I looked it all up on December 29th. I told Rick I was 40 miles short of 1000 to which he said )in all seriousness) "well, you have 2 more days". Right. Maybe this year I can break 1000. All that running must have done some good as 2013 seemed to be the year of new PRs. I have new PRs in the 5k, 10k and half marathon. Not sure how it all came about but it gave me a lot of confidence in my running potential. This may sound simplistic but really I think I *thought* I was pushing myself before but I really wasn't pushing myself to run as hard as I could. I think I was leaving too much in the tank so to speak. That 10k a month or so ago where I was up in front for the first time ever helped me realize that I can push harder and not require oxygen at the end.

 Looking ahead at 2014... I went back and read my post from this time last year. I was burnt out and needed some time off. I had been training all winter, had just run the Disney Marathon and was ready to not do anything for a while. The funny thing is training-wise I pretty much replicated last winter's training and even added in MORE swim/bike/run but this time around I am feeling ready to go! I have a few races and events early this year and then IM Chattanooga in the fall. I have been riding a lot at an indoor facility here in Atlanta, Energy Lab. They have a mix of Cycleops and computrainer options and I can already see an improvement. I am looking forward to working with them to get me to the finish line in Chattanooga! Last weekend I did the Dopey Challenge at Disney with Runner's World. I will have to give you a separate post on that one. It was so much fun and so exhausting all in one! Have a good weekend friends!