2014 Year in Review

Closing out 2014 with some stats, highs/lows, and everything in between:

Miles:  1240

Elevation gain:  77,000 feet

Number of races:  25 (4 less than 2013, but longer distances overall)

Trail/Road:  14/11

DNF:  1 (Chatfield Hollow 50k, dropped at 18+ miles)

Distances:  1 Mile, all the way to 50k+

2014 Bibs!

Highlights:

Once again completing all 5 races in the South County 4th Season Trail Race series, including 2 snowy sufferfests!

Mt. Greylock Half Marathon.  WOW.  2400' of vertical gain in the first 3 miles...and then there was the rest of it...what a kickass race!!!

Pisgah Mountain Trail Race.  Road trip!  Rode up with Jonny and Jeff, and were graciously hosted by the Hammetts.  My first time running in New Hampshire and I loved it!

Nipmuck Trail Marathon.  Perfect day, and I managed to shave almost 20 minutes off my 2013 time...

RI 6hr Ultra.  My longest race in 2014, and super fun!

Li'l Rhody Runaround.  One of my best performances of the year, having taken off over 5 minutes on an 8-mile trail race.  I'll be done in well under an hour next year for sure...

Mews Tavern 6.9k Road Race.  My best race of the year?  Coming in 83rd out of almost 1400 runners, I managed to cruise across the finish line in 29:56 for this odd-distance race, and negative split the whole thing.  Really happy with my results at this race!  And there was beer afterward!

Looking at my list of goals from the beginning of the year, I realized that while I didn't hit most of what I had written out, I did have more quality races than quantity, had a lot of fun at them, and definitely improved as the year progressed.  I ran more trail races than road, and managed to place 65th out of over 400 runners in the Grand Tree trail race series, which I hadn't realized until recently.

If there was any sort of low to this year, it might be an end-of-year knee issue that popped up, but it's nothing to complain about.  I took a couple of days off, and managed a pretty peppy run on 12/30, and have plans to go for an easy run on 12/31 as well.  Nothing debilitating, in other words, so I'm pretty stoked about being injury-free in 2014!

For 2015?  Hoping to run happy and healthy, get some more group runs in, and shoot for quality over quantity again...