Goodbye 2016

Today, January 2nd, is my 39th birthday. Birthdays are reflective by nature and mine may be more so than most since it lands so close to New Years. This being my athletic blog, I can't help but reflect on what went well, not so well in 2016 from an athletic perspective. Statistically and in many ways, 2016 could be considered my best year yet!

First off, I ran more races in 2016 than I ran in any other single year ever. This was completely on purpose. I started out running half marathons every other week in the late winter. I need to remember that racing every other weekend is the ideal cadence for me. I made the mistake of racing too often in the fall and saw declining times that were almost certainly attributable to the number of half marathon races I was doing. 

In the late winter/early spring, I was able to get my PR down from 1:24 down to 1:21! I consistently was keeping my times in the 1:22 - 1:23 range. The 1:21 I ran happened to be at the race with the largest dollar purse I have seen locally for a half marathon. I ended up winning the race and got a $500 purse! In all, I got 3 overall 1st place finishes in 2016 (also I got 1 place and 1 show). I got 23 top 3 AG finishes (only failing to do so in 4 races all year). 

I was first in my age group for more races than I was NOT first in my age group this year (14 vs 13). 

I ran 2 marathons this year. I got 38th overall at Des Moines (a race where the first 6 runners were professional, Eastern African marathon runners). At the Deadwood Marathon, I came back and got 4th place overall.

According to USA Triathlon, 2016 was the best year I ever had for Triathlon. My average score for 2016 was 83.578 (a higher score than even I received in 2012 when I was on Team USA). My best race by far (and maybe the race of my life) was when I ran a 2:18:26 for the Lake Logan International race. In that race, i PR'd for the 1500 meter swim and the 40 KM bike (strangely, my run was much slower than I ran at Lake Logan a few years earlier when I broke 40mins in the 10k). 

More than anything else, I'm blessed and very grateful to have remained healthy for the year. I hope I can continue to enjoy running/triathlons in the New Year and years to come and to stay happy and healthy doing so!