Friday, January 4, 2013

2012 Recap

So in the triathlon blogging world, it seems like everyone does a yearly summary of what they did, what they didn't do, were their goals met, training totals, comparisons, etc.  This post will be no different.

Run:
2011: 779 miles
2012: 1250 miles
60% improvement.

My running was huge this year.  I started off hitting a lot of solid 6.5 mile runs while the weather was still cool, and early on I PR'd my work loops.  I really felt spectacular going into Wildflower in early May.  And I KILLED it!  Wildflower has a BRUTAL run course, and I averaged low 7's for the run.  I didn't really have any numbers in mind going into it.  My only goal was "do better than last year" where I walked more than I ran in 2011.

Post Wildflower, things took a turn for the worst.  Back in 2010, I injured my hamstring training for CIM, and I never really recovered.  After beast-moding Wildflower, the injury was back in full-force.  I took some time off, but this injury is still plaguing me even today as I write this.

Running at Vineman was a huge disappointment.  I wanted to break 1:30 on the run for a half, and Vineman is the course to do it.  Last year I posted a 1:33, so this year I was hoping to do better.  I couldn't've been more wrong.  My hamstring injury killed my run training, and the lack of consistency was a bomb waiting to go off.  And it went off exactly one mile into the run at Vineman.

Running at the WC in Vegas is barely worth mentioning.  After severely under estimating the hydration requirements needed, only one word could describe the run: Survival.  Here are my thoughts during the race: Lap 1: "I want to quit.  I'm going to drop out of this race."  Repeat.  Lap 2: Mathing repeatedly to figure out if I'm going to make it under the time limit.  Lap 3: "Time is irrelevant at this point, and you could crawl and make the cutoff.  Walk longer and ENJOY IT!"

Then came the Chicago Marathon with my dad.  It was my fifth CM and eight full marathon.  I loved every step.

IMFL: Consistent training paid off.  I just barely missed the four hour mark, but considering how awesome my other splits were, I was ecstatic with a 4:05.  Almost identical to my Chicago Marathon time a few weeks early.

Bike:
2011: 2424 miles
2012: 2840 miles
17% improvement

At the beginning of this year, I had a single goal in mind for the bike: "Become a cyclist."  Looking back, I can honestly say that I failed at this goal.  Overall I think my cycling improved quite a bit.  This might have been due to overall fitness; it's hard to say.  I think the problem with this goal was that it wasn't really clearly defined.  At the time, I didn't really know what a cyclist was, so I didn't have a clear path to get there.  Now, for 2013, I know what it means to be a cyclist (in my mind:

- Get a bike fit
- Bike more than once per week (at least once during the week and once on the weekends)
- Train with power and use it intelligently (pacing on climbs/races, interval workouts)
- Use a Performance Management Chart to track my fitness (training peaks or Golden Cheetah)

I don't have any good numbers for my races.  This is part of the problem, and it will change in 2013.  Another problem is that I don't feel like I have a good sense of triathlon race biking strategy since it's hard to tell and usually doesn't show up until later in the run.  This is something else I have to figure out how to quantify in 2013.

Swim:
2011: 97.8 miles
2012: 83 miles
-15%

Swimming has always come pretty easy for me, and after some pretty good swims, I don't really feel like it's something that I have to put a lot of time into.  Two days per week MAX.  If anything, I need to work on open water skills, but even still, I'm getting pretty comfortable with that.  A 59:59 at IMFL was a huge success for me.  I don't see any need to improve too much on that FOR NOW.

Well, that's about it for now.  The next post will be 2013 goals.

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