January 1, 2015: A brief recap of running in 2014, and some goals for 2015

2014 has been an amazing year for my new hobby of running!  In October 2013, I ran my first 5K and definitely caught the running bug, working up to a 10K in December 2013.  Going crazy in 2014, I ran 22 timed races in 2014, including 11 5Ks and 7 10Ks.  After training for the Peachtree Road Race in July, I decided to work on longer distances, with the Atlanta 10 miler in October, and culminating in my first half-marathon in December.  

Some of the other bloggers have been publishing their running goals for 2015, so I thought I would post a couple of my own goals for 2015. 

1) For 2015, I want to improve at the 10K distance.  At this point 6-mile runs are a comfortable distance for my training, although I would like to improve my times in the 10K distance.  So one goal for 2015 is to run a 10K in less than 54 minutes.  My best time to date, 54:33, came on a perfect day for running but I also had a realistic plan that I was able to execute almost exactly as I had planned.  I've signed up for the Atlanta Track Club Peachtree City 10K in late January, and will probably run the Charles Harris 10K again in Tucker in late February.  Hopefully I can design and execute a plan to chip away a few seconds with every mile.

The key will be to continue to improve my fitness.  I plan to work in more speed workouts on my shorter mid-week runs, on the advice of one of my running coaches from the Peachtree-In-Training course.  But just as importantly, I need to do a better job of caring for my legs and body.  Throughout the year, I had various minor pains in my legs, none of them too serious, but there was always some small nagging issue.  It would move around, just as one little pain resolved, another one would start up, usually somewhere in the other leg.  The worst was a minor ankle sprain from a wet 10K in early December, that gave me a lot of grief in the last two miles of my first half-marathon 8 days later.  In 2015 I will resolve to do a few minutes of daily stretching, and a daily foam roller session; in 2014 I probably managed this only once each week.  I should probably also get back to yoga, as I had some really good races in late September and October when I was doing yoga once a week, but I need to find a good beginner class.  

2) My other goal for 2015 is to have a better experience in the half-marathon distance.  Limping to the finish line, while it was still a finish, was not very satisfying.  So I want to do a much better job in my next half-marathon.  I've registered for the Publix Georgia Half-Marathon on March 22, and will work on diligently training for the distance, even though spring semester will be very busy.  The focus will be less on overall time and more on training to run the entire race with fairly even splits.  I was very pleased with my entire experience of the Atlanta 10-miler in late October, including my splits, my overall time, and having enough energy for a strong finish.  Unfortunately I didn't train carefully enough in November to work toward the 13.1 mile distance.  It turned out that it wasn't as easy as I had thought it would be to tack on a 5K after running 10 miles. 

Part of the plan is to be a bit more selective about races run, especially 5K races, when I'm training for a substantially longer distance.  I enjoy the 5K distance, but running a 5K as fast as possible is generally not compatible with my training schedule.  I really can't do two strenuous runs on consecutive days, and it's very difficult to schedule long training runs on weekdays during the academic semesters.  I plan to volunteer for some of the 5K races that I did last year, so that I can be involved in the experience and yet still manage a long training run for myself later in the day or on a Sunday.