2017 Year in Review — I RUN ON BEER

As 2017 comes to a close, I've been spending time thinking about things I've accomplished over the past 12 months, as well as goals I'd like to set for myself moving into 2018. This has been my most productive year in running and blogging by far so before I jump into goals for 2018, I wanted to take some time to reflect on all of my accomplishments as well as some of the factors that contributed to those successes.

Running

Let's start with this year's running accomplishments. This time last year, with 2017 on the horizon, I sat down to set some resolutions for myself. Every year, I would set the same goal of hitting 500 miles, and every year I'd fall embarrassingly short, failing to even reach half that. So last year, I put some real thought into a goal and tried to aim for something I thought would be a little more realistic. I decided on an annual mileage goal of 365, an average of one mile per day.

I wasn't so worried about actually running a mile every day, just so long as I was averaging at least a mile per day by the end of every month. Now, here we are just a few days from 2018 and my total mileage for the year has rocketed past my initial goal, and oddly enough surpassed the 500-mile mark last month. As of writing this post, I'm at 562 annual miles with a few runs left before the year is up. In 2016 I had only hit 238 miles.

Looking back over the year, it's nice to see so much improvement month to month. The year started slow and I remember struggling at the end of a few months to make sure I got my miles in. February was the toughest and I barely scraped by with only 28.4 miles. Half-marathon training for Rock-n-Roll Montreal peaked for me in September when I logged my highest mileage month of the year coming in at 68.6. I still may top that in December but I'm nursing some pain in one of my feet which has caused me to skip a few of my weekly runs.

Not only has my mileage count crushed what I've accomplished in the past, but I've also started incorporating speedwork in the form of pace runs and 400m repeats into my training for the first time since high school. I also began incorporating strides after some of my weekly runs and have been trying to incorporate consistent strength training into my weekly routine although I definitely need to make both a priority in 2018.

A productive year in training led to a very productive year in racing as well. In 2017 I ran 4 races in three different states and two separate countries. I ran my first 10k at the Run Inspired race in Winterthur, DE in October. My first race at that distance means I automatically set a PR at 48:24.1. My other three races were all Rock 'n' Roll Half Marathons in New Orleans, Montreal, and Las Vegas. I also set a new half marathon PR in Vegas coming in at 1:46:11, almost 13 minutes faster than my time in New Orleans earlier this year.

I attribute a lot of success to thoughtful goal-setting and smarter training this year, but I also owe a lot of it to my participation in the BibRave Pro ambassador program. Being a part of BibRave for 2017 gave me access to such an awesome community of runners who helped motivate me and hold me accountable throughout the year. I can't wait to see what the 2018 cohort of BibRave Pros is going to accomplish!

The Website

Apart from a successful year of running, 2017 has been a great year for the I RUN ON BEER blog. When I started the I RUN ON BEER website in 2016, it was created with several contributors focussing on different aspects of the blog. In 2017 however, I shifted the site to highlight my own personal blog while still featuring other members of the beer-running community. This has led to much more consistent posting to the website which is evident in that I've doubled the amount of content produced in 2017 compared to 2016.

I RUN ON BEER more than doubled its total users so far for 2017 and our average monthly and weekly visitors have more than tripled. This year we've also had visitors from 93 different countries which is up 24 from last year. All these numbers are great but I'd definitely like to work harder at getting our visitors to come back starting with revamping our newsletter.

We almost doubled our email subscribers in 2017 but there's always room to improve. Specifically, I want to focus in 2018 on developing a stronger connection with our subscribers by focusing the newsletter on more personal features and stories as opposed to just sharing the latest content. I'll be spending the beginning of the year training for my first marathon so subscribers will get a closer look at how I'm doing.

I made two commitments in 2017, to improve my running, and to strengthen the I RUN ON BEER blog. Looking back on everything I've accomplished this year, I'm blown away by just how far I've come since last year. Now it's time to start looking toward 2018 so stay tuned! I'll be posting my resolutions in the next few days.