2007 Recap

It's the end of the year, and time for an annual running recap....

Original Goals
Starting the year the goal was to get more organised about training, run half marathons for 6-7 months (getting down to sub 1:40) and then train for and run a "well-under-4-hour" marathon in December.

Faster than planned progress on the half times had that goal change from 1:40 to 1:35 and eventually 1:30.

Injury had the marathon goal pushed to 2008.

The Miles
Mileage for the year was 1,507, with 3 distinct phases:
1) Jan-May. ramping the miles until achilles tendon problems started.
2) Jun-Aug. very little running, deep water running in the pool. misery
3) Sep-Dec. recovery and rebuilding.

Here's the chart of monthly miles (blue is pool running)

The Races

10 races in 2007, every one of them was a new personal best (PB) for me. It is good to be new to running, since improvement comes fairly easily with a little training effort. I am hoping that trend continues for a few more years.

Here's the 2006 and 2007 PBs for distances from 5k to a full marathon... I'm most proud of my 1:29:56 in the half.

The Analysis
I have data and trending for pretty much everything, but the key is really the relationship between speed and heartrate. As you get fitter you can run faster at a given heartrate. If I trend heartrate/speed for my races there is a steady decline. Using that I can project my future performances and see if I am on track to meet them.

Here's the trending for 2007 (bubble size indicates the length of the run, blue line is 3 week trailing average)... Excepting the injury phase, it shows a pretty steady decline from 22ish to 19ish
















Overall it was a very successful year for me - I end 2007 way stronger, fitter, faster and smarter (at least about running) than I started it. I went from running 40 miles per week to running over 60, and from 5 days/week to everyday. The achilles injury really changed everything. I realised that it is very easy to push too hard (especially up hills), and that I am not 20 anymore. I've learned a lot about what my body can, and can't put up with - ice has become my friend, stretching is now something that I do everyday. I also learned that it's OK to push thru extreme discomfort when racing, but probably not so smart to do that every day in training.

I'll publish my 2008 goals tomorrow