The Celtic Solstice 5 mile race on December 13th was my last race for 2014. It's time for a unabashed look at my race year in review. I'm also in week 2 of marathon training for Pittsburgh in May, 2015.
The Celtic Solstice 5 mile run is a great, fun race with about 3,200 people that start at the Stieff Silver Company, run on the Druid Hill park trails, around Druid Lake, and then back to Stieff. It's a great end of year race, with hot soup and warm wine at the end. This year the temperature for the race was in the low to mid 30's so it was an ideal end of year race.
My friend Rob and I ran together and due to congestion, the first mile was very slow. The race opened up for the rest of the race and I didn't really have a goal time, so this was just going to be fun. We starting hitting mid to high 8's for the rest of the run. I kept telling Rob I wanted to slow down and Rob would say OK. Rob knows me better than that, so while I tell myself we slowed down, we really didn't. We finished in 44:38 which is 8:56 a mile. A new 5 mile PR for me.
I also ran my work fun run 5K, which really doesn't turn out to be a fun run, but more like a race for me. I work at University of Maryland, Baltimore, which is the Medical School, Pharmacy School, one of the Law Schools, Social Work School, and Dental School for the University System of Maryland. There is always a bunch of young 20 somethings running this to blow off stress. They always decide to take off at some pace much faster than I want to run. I also can't let these kids get away from me easily, so usually I try to stay up for a couple of miles. I also catch those that aren't in great shape, who blow up after a couple of miles. I get asked, how old am I, and then wow you're pretty fast. Makes an older guy feel proud. This time I let the kids go at their fast pace and I drop into a tempo run pace and keep it. A lot of the students who went out with the faster group started to drop off and I was able to catch them. The route is a little short for 5K, so I always go around the building one more time to finish off the 5K. I'm almost always the only one who goes around the 2nd time, but this time I was joined by a few students who ran my pace for the last bit. It was pretty cool to lead the pack to the finish and then some mint protein shakes that are given out.
I finished off my marathon training week with 22 miles, most of which were done faster than marathon pace. I'm still staying with my strength workout and getting better at it.
So how did my year go? It was very much an up and down year. January, February, and March were a great three months. I set PRs in the 5K and at the Kennard 10 miler. I was feeling confident going into my half marathons in April and May. Unfortunately April started off a 5 month group of bad races. I hurt my calf in April, but limped through a half marathon. In May I had two half marathons that were no better than the April. I wasn't able to train at all and I started Chiropractic therapy as well to which I had some bad reaction to. In June I had two 5Ks and I did OK, not great, but felt like I was about to turn the corner. July and August I was on some a oral meds for a toenail problem and I had a side effect reaction that made me feel like I couldn't run well nor did I want to run. It took about 4 weeks to get myself back to normal. In September I won 3rd place in Age Group in the Race for Every Child in DC and a new 5K PR. The next week I also finished 3rd in AG for the 10K at the Race for our Kids in Pikesville. I ran the Baltimore half marathon in October and while not a PR, it was certainly the best I had run in Baltimore by about 2 minutes. I was back on track. I ran a few more 5Ks in which I was consistently back in the mid 8 minutes per mile to complete. November was the Across the Bay 10K and I set a 10K PR. Then the December Celtic Solistice where I set a 5 mile PR.
Overall I was pretty happy where my racing went this year. I cut back on the half marathons and focused more on the shorter distances. I set PRs at the 5K, 10K, 5 mile, and 10 mile distances.
I'm now focusing on the marathon/half marathon for 2015. My goal in the next two years is to drop about 65 minutes in the marathon and hopefully qualify for Boston and of course stay healthy while doing it.
Thanks for reading and happy running.
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