I finished off 2016 with a nice 4.5 mile run.  Honestly it felt like the best run I’ve done in the last week or so.

The end of 2016 is upon us.  It’s been a good running year for me.  I managed to go the entire year without any major injuries.  I definitely chalk this up to my newer rotation of shoes – 3 different shoes of all different types – and no aggressive changes to my mileage.  My goal going into the year was to hit 70 miles per month (an arbitrary goal but one that was more ambitious compared to anything I’d done previously).  A few years ago I had attempted to do 50 miles per month but that was derailed with injury about 4-5 months into the year.

I’m happy to report that I hit my 70 miles/month goal and also have a new PR for total yearly mileage.  The breakdown of my monthly totals is as follows:

• January – 75.87
• February – 71.24
• March – 77.05
• April – 74.36
• May – 70.45
• June – 72.08
• July – 71.56
• August – 71.74
• September – 70.89
• October – 71.43
• November – 70.16
• December – 75.8

Total yearly mileage – 872.6 (183 runs)

My previous highest yearly mileage came in 2013 with 718.7 miles.  I chalk up the previous few years of much fewer miles (500-600) due to injuries.  This past year I only ran 2 races.  My goal was to have an injury-free year of running, which I accomplished.  I’m pretty proud of the 70 miles/month goal.  I’ll admit there were a few months where I had concerns about not making it.

This year I also added a GPS running watch to my aresenal.  I bought the Garmin Forerunner 225 in January and have been using it consistently for most of my runs.  I don’t obsessively look at it on every run as I know many running coaches suggest having at least a few runs with no GPS watches/phones/etc to just enjoy the run.  I, luckily, am able to do those runs even with my watch on without looking to see how far I’ve gone or how fast I’m running.  My phone GPS also hadn’t been terribly accurate so I was glad to have something a little more reliable.

Runner’s World magazine had an article talking about decluttering as it pertains to running gear (clothes, shoes, hats, accessories, etc).  Growing up I was in an environment where we kept things.  By things I mean “everything.”  You never know when you’re going to need something.  My wife is the complete opposite and tries to keep material things to a minimum.  I have slowly been trying to be more minimalist as the years have gone by.  After reading the article, in which the author professes to having way too much running gear, I thought I should probably join in this movement and start slowly culling running shirts.  I have collected quite a few tech t shirts from various races.  I profess to never having actually purchased a tech t-shirt since I have obtained them all through race registrations.  My cubby that I keep my shirts in was over-stuffed and some of the shirts I have are 6 years old.  So far I’m retiring the following two shirts (my wife looked into places where I can actually recycle these shirts rather than going into a landfill somewhere).

The meteor martian was my first and only 10K race to date.  I still can’t believe I ran it as quickly as I did (52.75 minutes).  The AFC 5K was my first race in SD, which culminated in the RnR SD Marathon in 2011.  Both shirts served me well in many many runs in the last 6 years.

Next up are my running goals for 2017.

Happy New Years!!

-StewsCat