Year of Running - 2016

I hope everyone had a great holiday season!  I'm back from vacation in Costa Rica and we had a great time but I am exhausted.  I figure this would be a good time to link up with Courtney and talk about my year in running.

 

I've had a great year of running.  As always, there were highs and lows but I think the highs won out.  And I had PRs in the 5k, 10k, 10 mile and half marathon distances. 

• Best race experience: I had a lot of races this year.  There were 3 half marathons, 1 10 miler, 3 10ks, 1 5 miler, 1 8k, and 5 5ks for a total of 14 races.  It's hard to pick the best race experience out of those.  I think I'm going to with the Race 13.1 Baltimore Half Marathon in December.  It was really close between that and RnR DC.

• Best run:I had a lot of great runs with friends this year but I think the best run is going to go to a solo run I did as my last long run before RnR Vegas.  It was one of those runs where everything just seemed to click and I felt great.  This was in spite of taking a spill during the run.

• Best new piece of running gear: I haven't gotten a lot of new running gear this year.  It's mostly been tried and true things from previous years that I've continued to use during my runs.  I did receive a hydration pack at the beginning of the year and that was really useful to use on long runs during Winter when the water fountains had been turned off.  I'll probably need to pull it out again soon. 

• Best running advice you’ve received this year: To remember my purpose.  There have been times when I let running become too much about PRs and times and it becomes not fun anymore.  I have to remind myself that I'm doing this for fun and to try to create a sustainable, healthy habit.

• Most inspirational runner: Not limited to runners but I was inspired by so many of the athletes during the Olympics this year.

• Favorite picture from a run or race this year: That would be a photo from RnR DC as I crossed the finish line with a friend who was doing her first half marathon.

 

• Race experience you would repeat in a heartbeat: Let's go with RnR DC since I signed up for the 2017 race the day after the 2016 race!

• If you could sum up your year in a couple of words what would they be? Fun!  This was the first year that I convinced a couple friends to do half marathons with me so we did a lot of races and training runs together and that was a nice addition.