2018 Year in Review

Year in Review

Looking Back at 2018

2018 has certainly been an incredible year and it's been great spending the last few days looking back over how far I've come since this time last year. 2017 was when I first started taking my running more seriously and I was determined to push myself even further this past year.Looking back over my year, I'm happy to see that I've hit a lot of the goals that I set for myself but there are also some areas where I could definitely use some work! This is one of my favorite times of year because it gives me a chance to reflect on my year while also turning my attention forward to figure out where I want to be at the end of 2019!So let’s take a look at some of the major goals I set for myself in 2018!

Goal #1 - Total Mileage

In 2017 I decided to set a goal to run 365 miles (average 1 mile per day) and I ended up running well over 500! To challenge myself further this year, I decided to double last year’s goal and aim for 730 miles in 2018. After another killer year, I'm on track to hit 911 miles after my final run this afternoon!Although it wasn't necessarily a specific goal, last year my highest mileage month was 68.6 miles and I almost doubled that in 2018 hitting 134.7 miles in November.

Goal #2 - First Marathon

Done! I successfully completed the Coastal Delaware Marathon in April which was possibly my favorite accomplishment of the whole year. Unfortunately, I just missed my secondary goal of 4-hours (I finished in 4 hours and 19 seconds!). I’ll definitely be shooting to hit another marathon early in 2019.Running the marathon was an awesome accomplishment this past year but I actually think I may have appreciated the training even more. Training for the marathon is a brutal and time-consuming process and getting through it feels like a victory on its own. I can't wait to see how I'm able to improve this year and am feeling a lot more confident now that I've got a coach in my corner helping me out!

Goal #3 - Half Marathon PR

I actually was able to hit this goal twice! During marathon training, I ran Rock 'n' Roll Raleigh as a bit of a "tune-up race" just to gauge my progress and without intending to, I actually saved a few seconds off my PR from Las Vegas in 2017. I was especially pleased with Raleigh because I was able to set a PR on an incredibly hilly course. New PR was 1:45:45.Then, over the summer, I decided I really wanted to break the 1:40 threshold in the half and so I began training for Rock 'n' Roll Philly. The race day conditions weren't the best as the temperatures began climbing pretty early, but I was able to snag myself another PR. I'm still chasing my mom's 1:36 PR but I was able to crush my previous record and cross the finish line in 1:38:16!

Goal #4 - 5k PR

Another goal of mine was to revisit the 5k since I hadn't run one in a few years. 5ks are where I started and I've been interested in getting back to the shorter distances for a while. Primarily, I was just curious about how I would feel running such a short race but I also wanted to see how my legs would hold up at a much faster pace.Approaching race day, I set a goal for myself to come in under a 7:00-mile pace. Starting off fast, the burning sensation in my legs and lungs immediately brought me back to my high school cross country days. I crossed the finish line in 20:55.9, a 6:44-pace. I definitely want to do a few more of those in 2019.

Missed Goals

I didn’t run as many races as I would have liked in 2018, especially local races. Although looking back, it was nice to realize that I ran 5 races in 2018 and set 5 PRs which I feel pretty great about! I'd definitely like to increase my participation in local races for 2019 and am starting to consider participating in the NYRR 9+1 program to get guaranteed entrance into the NYC marathon in 2020 (have to decide soon if I want to register my the midnight deadline)!I think when celebrating successes from the year, it's just as important to look at where we may have fallen short. For me, my biggest misses were with strength and flexibility training to supplement my running. Although I certainly improved, there is definitely still a lot of room to grow. I did focus a lot on strength training while training for Philly and saw HUGE benefits, in 2019 I definitely need to make this more of a priority.A goal I set for myself for blogging was also to get more consistent with my blog posting as well as my newsletter. Again, I improved drastically and definitely got onto a more regulated schedule with my blog posts, the newsletter is certainly an area where I could still use some work though!

RunningDecember 31, 2018