It's hard to believe that another year has come and gone. It's been a heck of a year. So many changes and so much gratitude for two huge trips with plenty of adventure. Spending most of the year managing an organic farm and running a CSA was also quite the adventure.
I'll front-load this by saying THANK YOU to all of you out there who followed my year and consistently gave kudos. I don't expect most of you to read this entire post, but I really want you to know that it means a lot to me knowing that there are folks out there like you getting after it, day in and day out. I've been so inspired by some of your athletic accomplishments, your ridiculous mileage and your kindness in supporting what I do.
Looking back at my goals for this year, I accomplished every goal. One eye-opener was that I was on the fence about a big race for the fall/winter and since I didn't set a goal, nothing happened. There's a lesson there. I've been kind of in a holding pattern since September. Although it was really fun running my sister's first half marathon with her, I really should've pushed myself to grab a PR on a separate occasion, since I had already trained up to a half.
2022 Goal #1: Make myself a stronger runner. I'm definitely stronger today than I was in mid-January when I set this goal. I've consistently done strength work once a week, I've been climbing consistently twice a week and was finally able to get that chin-up (without the help of a resistance band). I'm still working on a real pull-up, getting my chest up to the bar, but that will come with time. I'm sure I will get it this year. C'mon back muscles! Consistent hill work has also made me stronger. I'm actually sometimes now faster on uphills as compared to the flats. I see a hill and I go into attack mode, honing good form and speeding up on the hill. Flats are where I'm still lazy. Adding some more focused speed work this year should help remedy that.
2022 Goal #2: Be intentional about running. I give all of the credit for accomplishing this goal to the amazing SWAP team of Coaches David and Megan Roche. Listening to their podcast and reading about their training plans and ideas for workouts has allowed me to self-coach. In 2022, there were no meaningless runs that felt like junk miles. Every run had a purpose, whether it was aerobic development, hill work, speed work, or building endurance. I look forward to starting another training block at the end of January following their training principles as I start the build for my big race of next year, the Lavaredo 50K in the Dolomites. Although it's "just" a 50K, it's almost 8,500 ft of vert. My goal is to get stronger so that I can handle the downhills better than I could at OCC. Training for OCC made me a strong power-hiker. I'd like to still kick butt power-hiking, but try to run some of the uphills at Lavaredo and finish well below the the cut-off time of 12 hours. Not getting passed by so many runners on the downhills would be also be nice.
2022 Goal #3: Run OCC. This one, I had no control over, but the stars aligned and I was drawn in the lottery. Soaking in the splendor of Chamonix and the Swiss Alps this past August was one of the best experiences of my life. Paragliding with views of Mont Blanc was definitely a highlight. The race itself was gorgeous. My performance at OCC was just barely good enough to finish before the cut-off. I still find it difficult to decide if working at the farm helped me or hurt me for the race. On one hand, I had so much more time on feet and plenty of heat training. On the other hand, it was physically very demanding, so my body was probably worn a bit thin.
2022 Goal #4: A fun but challenging race that is part of a solo adventure. This was probably my favorite trip of the year. It's pretty odd to me how enamored I was by being in a place with hardly any trees or even anything green. There's just something really awe-inspiring about Moab that's hard to explain. I think it's probably the outdoor culture, more than anything. The rock formations are of course very cool and the climbing opportunities are endless. Climbing Ancient Art would probably top my list as my most favorite outdoor adventure of 2022. Running the Behind the Rocks 30K was definitely a challenge for me. I was happy to know that I could endure running through sand for 30K and not getting that frustrated.
Mileage-wise, I was correct in my prediction that I would actually log less mileage this year as compared to last year. I know it's because I didn't race long in the fall/winter. Am I losing fitness since the summer? This is something I question on a weekly basis. Of course, we've had the run of the mill winter illnesses in the household, so that's also probably impacted my training. I also now have 2 teenagers and a pre-teen in the house, so I've had less time for training. In any case, my mileage was significantly lower that 2021, about 500 miles less, but that's also due to the fact that I ran the 50 miler last year. Stats for 2022 according to the Strava wrap up:
1,875 total miles (1,231 of those were running miles), 116,070 ft of vert, 319 days active, 68 PRs and the top 1% of Strava athletes (not really sure what that means?).
I don't take for granted that I accomplished my main goal of 2022, which was to remain injury-free and generally healthy. That's always going to be a work in progress and one that requires constant attention. I've been more aware of eating enough so that I don't drop weight and I've continued to be very disciplined about getting enough sleep. A couple of things I've added recently to try to level up have been downing a protein drink (Gnarly vegan protein powder) after some harder runs and Athletic Greens. With the AG1, I'm not doing it daily, because it is more money than I want to spend on supplements. Trying to keep it to an average of $1/day, so I think I'm doing it about once every other day or once every 3 days or so. I'm still a huge believer in spending 10 minutes a day with the Hypervolt. Seems to do wonders for recovery.
One aside is that in 2022, I discovered how my body reacts to being at higher altitude. Nothing crazy- I think the max at OCC was between 7,000-8,000 ft, but it was good to know that I didn't react too badly. Behind the Rocks was around 6,000 ft and I didn't really notice it.
I've already started thinking about 2023 and have a couple of things lined up for the first half of the year, but I really think it's important for me to add another adventure with a challenging ultra in the later part of the year.
Wishing you all a Happy New Year full of adventuring!
Exiting the chimney on Ancient Art
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