2019 Running Review

At the end of the Tunbridge Wells ParkRun I had a nice chesty hack. Assumed it was just down to a a lot of deep breathing (aka panting like a knackered hound) of cold air. Turns out it was the start of a nast cold. 8 days later and I’m still not properly over it. So time, to look at what went well, and what didn’t in 2019

The Good

Personal bests for 5k, 10km and half marathon were nice to see:

• 5k – 19:20 (Beeston ParkRun)
• 10k – 39:06 (Sinfin 10k)
• Half Marathon – 1:28:30 (Retford half)

All of them were a decent improvement over previous years times. Mostly achieved with lots of steady slow distance running rather than much speed work.

Got to run in some lovely locations over the year. Couple of trips up to the Peak District, Grand Canyon, Boulder CO and New York all spring to mind

Stats

Number of runs was up on 2018 by 31.

Total time spent running up by 54 hours, so on average each run was longer than 2018.

Total distance was 609km up on 2018

Total Elevation was up by 4854m on 2018

So further, longer and hight sums that one up

Generally training went well. When I took it sensible and steady I saw good results, and didn’t get too injured. Strength work in the gym definitely help, and I need to get back in to that. When I tried to push too hard, or didn’t accept that a 44 year old body needs a bit more rest then, that’s when this lot happened:

The Bad

Looking at my Garmin activity graph there’s some obvious dips on some months:

March/April had a bit of a dip. The day after the Retford Half we flew out to Iceland for a holiday, and then a week later I flew on to Seattle for work. I tried to ramp back up too quickly with a freezing 20 miler around Reykjavík the morning before my Seattle flight, and then abother 21 miler around Belleveue and Seattle which ended up with me Ubering back to the hotel. The lethargy never really lifted when I got back to the UK, so I changed plans and took a break and dropped out of the Boston (UK) Marathon.

Got back into it for May, and then another drop as I tweaked my hip. Some rest and Physio advise fixed that up for me and August went well.

September was low as we were travelling across the US, so not really a problem. Well except for that time I fell down a mountain in Colorado……

But since then it’s been going well until this cold hit!

Overall

So overall a mixed year, but on the whole I’m going to take that as win. Not as consistent as I’d have liked, but the stuff I did do went really well. Not that you’d not from above, but runners love to complain don’t they 😉

Need to make a few tweaks for 2020, but those will go into another post in a couple of days