a year in races
This is always one of my favorite recaps to write.
My year started off by running - and just barely PRing - a four miler on New Year's Eve with an awesome group of girls. This is still one of my favorite races from 2012.
After that race, I hunkered down for quite a few months into training, emerging untapered and with a still-healing calf in March to match my half marathon PR and cheer the poet onto a big marathon PR.
April brought my first 10 miler - another fake PR run at MAF - my very first swim meet, and the first sprint triathlon I had done since my very first. I learned that I had completely forgotten how to hurt on the run (and writing this now, I realize that I still haven't remembered).
May was less fun as I kicked it off by puking my way through 70.3 miles. But later the month brought a confidence-building century and easy-paced open water 5K swim to kick off an awesome training weekend with friends. I still have no idea how there are zero pictures from that weekend.
June was all about ironman. I swam, I biked, I ran, and I finished the day happy.
July brought another swim meet and August had me jumping into a sprint, where I finished both on the podium and by qualifying for AG Nationals as I raced alongside the poet, who was completing his first-ever triathlon (welcome to the dark side).
I was pretty cranky about training the rest of the month, but somehow magically managed to pull a decent day square out of my ass at my September 70.3, PRing each leg for a significant overall PR.
Looking back, I pretty much shut down after that race. Life stress ramped up in a dozen different ways and training took a backseat to all of it. I was completely unprepared to jump into a 5K but did so anyway, and then managed to get two legs into another 70.3 before I decided not to barf my way through another half marathon.
I realized that mentally, I was done at that point in the year and spent some time in deep rest. I ran a 10K watchless and completely for fun with a friend in November, and then alternated getting sick and driving across the country for the rest of the year.
I learned a lot about racing this year, about training and scheduling and balancing it against life. After ironman I was done. My season was over, and by forcing myself back into training all I did was make my fall full of crabby training sessions which turned into half-assed attempts at racing. This year I hope to plan better, race smarter, and realize when it's time to shut things down for a little while.
How were your races in 2012? What does 2013 look like for you?
